Set in Stone
by Schildkroete
Summary: When Jack and the Doctor visit a primitive planet they've never seen before Jack finds himself worshipped for something he will do in the planet's past. He isn't so happy when he finds out what it is. Slash.
1. Chapter 1

"Raise your arms!" Jack commands and the Doctor does so, a look of irritation on his face. He doesn't wince even though the movement has to hurt and so Jack pretends he doesn't know his friend is in pain and takes his time wrapping the bandage around the Time Lord's body. He isn't too gentle either, not making his anger a secret.

The wounds have been torn by claws and are deep, if not particularly dangerous now they have been cleaned. They run over the Doctor's chest and back and there's a bite mark on his right arm. Jack finishes his work and when the Doctor lets his arms drop he does flinch a little.

"That's what you get for being so self-destructive!" Jack tells him, causing the Doctor to roll his eyes – it's not the first time they're having this argument. Since he started travelling with the Time Lord again Jack has seen him nearly throwing his life away for nothing far too often to assume the Doctor might be over his tiny little death wish.

The Doctor is so old and experienced but he is also very mortal. Jack is not, and somehow that makes him feel responsible for his friend. As if it was his job to watch over him, make sure he doesn't get hurt. That's what friends do anyway.

And the Doctor is making it so damn hard.

Most of the time his stunts end harmless, nothing worse than scratches or bruises, but Jack always sees what _could_ have been, and in this case he sees the Doctor with his throat torn out, his guts strewn across the meadow.

He doesn't think of the silent glares he receives every time he lets himself get killed for no particular reason.

Now the Doctor also glares, but it isn't silent.

"What did you expect me to do?" he asks. "Stand around and let them get eaten?"

"I could have stopped it! My wounds would have disappeared once I came back to life."

"Yes, but for that to happen you'd have to die first. I've done that, remember? I know dying isn't fun, not matter how much you claim to be used to it. No." The Doctor raises his good hand to stop Jack's protest. "Besides, you were too far away. I can't just sit back and hope someone else will arrive in time to do what I could do myself! There's nothing to get agitated about. It's just flesh wounds anyway."

"That's not the point!" But it probably is, and the Doctor's scowl tells him so. He is sitting on the couch in the console room, looking up at Jack, his long legs dangling above the floor. So damn boyish, so damn sexy, and Jack doesn't know if he should send him to bed and read him a bedtime story or bend him over the console and screw him senseless.

He is spared the misery of choosing by the fact that neither is an option.

When the Doctor puts on a clean shirt he doesn't hurry. Jack flirts with him on a regular basis, makes no secret of his desire for this man (just of the exact extent of his desire). He's played the game of "Make a Move on the Doctor and be Rejected" for years, which is fun but frustrating because the Doctor always wins. Still the Doctor has no problem with shedding his many layers of clothes in front of his friend and Jack can never tell if he should feel insulted because the Doctor doesn't take him seriously, feel proud because he trusts him and knows Jack would never touch him or be plain and simply amazed because the Doctor, quite obviously, has no idea what he's doing and wouldn't know what to make of the word 'teasing' in this context.

Jack has lived among people from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty first century long enough to understand that not everyone shares his open sexuality, but despite occasionally joining the flirting game the Doctor gives a new definition to the word 'clueless'.

Jack sighs and helps him into his jacket because his anger can never last when he knows the Doctor is in pain.

"Just be more careful next time," he says and doesn't know how many times he's said it before.

The Doctor still looks annoyed – he thinks he's too old to need to be looked after while Jack will never understand how he managed to get this old in the first place.

"As if you'd let anything happen to me," the Time Lord mutters.

-

Contrary to public belief the Doctor doesn't seek trouble. What he really wants is to see the wonders of the universe, and sometimes he simply needs to see that the universe is wonderful because it is easy to forget. But what he finds most of the time is chaos and destruction and death, and still so much bravery and compassion in the face of it that he can never loose sight of what he's fighting for. There is always someone deserving to be saved. Sometimes the Doctor just doesn't know if that also counts for him.

Though he never said it he is grateful for Jack's company. The human is cursed with immortality but instead of despairing in the face of a lonely eternity he keeps going, keeps being himself. And the Doctor knows he is the only constant Jack has in this ever changing cosmos of the short-lived. He counts on the Doctor to be there and being the one to blame for Jack's situation it's the least the Doctor can do for him.

Sometimes Jack keeps him from giving up. Most of the time it isn't necessary.

There's a lot out there worth living for. (Jack once said there were so many things worth dying for that the Doctor just hasn't yet been able to pick one.) Even though it hurts to go on and fight and it's painful to fail again and again the Doctor is still trying to make things better. He has to, because he can.

But it is a welcome change when once in a while the TARDIS takes them to a place that doesn't need to be saved. Some place that is simply somewhere they haven't been before. So when the Doctor steps out of the TARDIS and into a meadow bathed in sunshine and there are no armed men, no explosions and no screams for help within the first five minutes of their arrival he allows himself to relax a little and hope that this time their visit to this planet will be just for fun.

Maybe there's something new to learn here, some mystery to discover, and even if there isn't the sky is enough reason to stay for a while: it is pale blue like the sky of Earth but the three large moons that are circling the planet in a close orbit are partially covering one of the three suns and only when they manage a full eclipse at a time when the other suns are down is there a brief moment of darkness in which they'd be able to see the neighbour planet with its rings of gas in front of the Residion nebula.

To see that they'd have to stay for a while though.

Jack steps beside him as the Doctor gazes down into the valley, where a small, picturesque city is waiting for them. A street leads out of the town and on it they can see wagons drawn by animals that do not look like horses at all. The drivers still look humanoid enough.

"So. Let's see what's going on down there," Jack says, a lightness in his voice that for once is real.

"Not much, I'd say," the Doctor answers. "Seems like a pretty normal day we've picked. But it's a city. I bet they have a shop down there. Several shops in fact. Haven't seen a good, proper shop in ages."

"You have no money," the human reminds him, as if one thing had anything to do with the other.

"Who says I want to buy anything? I'd just like to see a shop again. There's something nice about good, small old shops, where you could buy things you don't need. If you wanted to."

"I know plenty of shops selling things _you_ will certainly never need," Jack smirks. "I can take you there if you want to."

"Thank you, but my scientific curiosity only goes so far."

"You don't even know what I have in mind!"

"Well, it's kind of hard to know your mind, because I can hardly hold my breath long enough to find it in the gutter it's disappeared in." The disapproval in the Doctor's voice isn't real and Jack laughs and puts his arm around his shoulder, pulling him close.

"The gutter is big enough for two," he suggests.

"And you make sure the other place is always occupied," the Doctor nods, slipping out of his grip. "Can I count on you not harassing any natives when we're down there?" He looks down at the city again, eager to get there. It might look ordinary but visiting a new world is never dull, and now he can assume nothing will attack them the excitement quickly takes over.

"That depends on the natives," Jack shrugs. "Travelling with you for so long I've become nearly celibate. Let a guy have a little fun!"

The Doctor snorts. "If by 'celibate' you mean not molesting me in my sleep and keeping your hands off things that would eat them I can't argue."

"That's just because you never sleep," Jack admits with wink. As if he'd have to defend his reputation…

"Well, yes. I prefer a shop," the Doctor states. "A harmless shop. That sells things. Normal things."

"How about you go find your shop then, and I see how friendly the natives are?" Jack offers and the Doctor nods, flashing his friend a quick grin.

"Okay, bye!"

He starts running down the hill, his coat flapping behind him. Either this place is harmless and it's okay to split up or it isn't, in which case they'd get separated anyway. They always are.

The further he's running downwards the faster he becomes until his legs can hardly keep up with his own speed. At the feet of the hill, where the first buildings stand, the Doctor stumbles and nearly falls.

"Oh, hello wall!" he says, addressing the small house he's (collided with) used to stop his run. The wall in question has no windows and is build from rough stone that goes along with the primitive carts they've seen from above. It doesn't answer.

The Doctor turns and waves to Jack who's following him down the hill at a somewhat more reasonable speed before jogging down the small alley that hopefully leads to a proper street.

It does, and the Doctor discovers that even from nearby the inhabitants of the city look like humans. Their clothes are colourful, wide and apparently it's common for the men to wear their shirts open, revealing their naked chests. Jack will like that, the Doctor muses and ignores the stares he receives because his own multi-layer outfit. From the local fashion and the temperature he assumes that it is summer now.

The closer the Doctor gets to the centre of the city the more storeys the stone buildings have, and after a few minutes he reaches a large, plastered place lined with shops of all kind. He smiles to himself. A nice little peaceful city with shops. Exactly what he was hoping for. What could possibly go wrong in a city like this?

Expect that he's feeling a little odd. As if something in this place isn't quite as it should be.

A startled cry makes him turn his head to look at a rather rude young man, pointing at him with a trembling finger. The Doctor frowns at him – he knows his outfit don't fit the fashion but this guy's overdoing it. He's also attracting the attention of several other people. They're staring as well, whispering to each other, and a few of them quickly turn around and leave.

Apparently they don't see many strangers around here. With the quality of their roads that's hardly surprising.

"Hi," he says cheerfully. "I'm the Doctor!"

Seems like they don't like doctors either, because the rude young man turns around and runs away. After a moment everyone else is gone as well.

The Doctor frowns to himself. There's got to be more to their reaction than just the fact that they don't know him. Confronted with a stranger they should have shown at least a little curiosity. Contempt, if they indeed disliked everyone from elsewhere. But these people haven't shown dislike. They've shown fear.

Terror, to be exact.

Standing alone on the now deserted place the Doctor doesn't waste time feeling like a child again, avoided by everyone. He turns left instead, runs over to a tall building older than the others. The feeling that something's off gets stronger the closer he gets, and the stronger it becomes the more he begins to understand what it is.

His skin tingles as he presses his palms against the cool stone. It is covered in cracks, withered, paled and worn out by centuries of sun and rain. No, not centuries. Millennia. This building is old. Older than the city.

Older than the building.

The Doctor's face darkens as he takes a step back and silently says goodbye to his hope for an uneventful trip. The age of this building isn't the same as the number of years that have passed since it was erected. Now he knows what to look for the Doctor realises that the place feels the same, if to a much lesser extend. Something has messed with this city, has torn parts of it out of the normal flow of time in a way that feels both familiar and wrong.

The Doctor can't even guess what happened but he'd be surprised if it had nothing to do with the people's fear of strangers. He only hopes Jack doesn't get into trouble.

Tapping his finger to his lips thoughtfully he studies the ancient house, then he turns and presses his hand to the neighbouring building. Concentrates. There's nothing. Whatever happened was either a very focused phenomenon or this house had been build afterwards.

Lost in his thoughts the Doctor only notices that he's no longer alone when it's far too late. He turns away from the wall and all he can do is raise his arms in surrender as a dozen men in armours are pointing their spears at him. Their helmets only partially hide faces that show fear, fury and a lot of determination.

-

Jack takes a deep breath, enjoying the clear air that smells ever so slightly of salt despite this place not being anywhere near the sea. The soft wind is playing with the shirt he's opened to blend in with the locals, feeling very nice on his naked skin.

The people passing by eye him curiously. That they look like humans is a welcome bonus – not that Jack would mind a few tentacles, but there's no way of telling how tentacled or furry men and women on a primitive planet would react to someone like him.

A young woman is openly staring at him and he winks at her. She blushes, looks down – but not for long. Jack puts on his most charming grin as he walks over to her.

"Hello, I'm Jack Harkness!" he introduces himself, showing off his perfect teeth. He's learned that including a military rank in his name isn't always a brilliant idea. "I'm new to town and terribly lost. In fact I'm desperate for a guide to show me the local attractions."

"I… I'd love to!" she says, blushing even more. "But there's somewhere I have to go."

"Oh, such a pity! Now I have to find another guide as lovely as you!" But Jack already has his eyes set on another woman, a bit older but meeting his gaze openly and smiling back.

"You're new to the city?" she asks in an attractively deep voice.

"Oh, just passing through," Jack explains. "I won't be here for long, so I want to make the best of the time I have."

"I certainly can help you with that," she promises, looking him up and down with unhidden approval. At least this civilisation has already buried the worst of the silly morals primitive cultures often suffer from – if they ever discovered them in the first place.

Of course he wouldn't mind seeing a bit of the place as well. Who can tell if he'll ever back here for a second look?

But travelling with the Doctor for any length of time can be damn frustrating. He has to use his chances when he gets them.

"You sure you can't come?" he asks the woman he addressed first. "With two qualified guides I'd be sure not to miss any of the fun!"

She actually looks like she's having second thoughts about it though Jack can already see that eventually she'll stick to her refusal. Before she can confirm his assumption though, their chat is interrupted by an old man hurrying down the street towards them, a number of younger men and women in tow.

"My Lord, oh, my Lord," the old man says breathlessly, bowing deeply before Jack. "We had not expected your return! Had we known we would have greeted you in the appropriate way! Forgive your humble servants!"

Jack can only stare at him. The two women he's been talking to back away slowly, watching him with new interest – and looking just as confused as he feels. A pleading look in their direction doesn't provide the explanation he was hoping for.

"Right…" he says, at a loss. "You're forgiven."

"You are too generous, my Lord!" the old man tells him. Not that Jack wouldn't agree, but he'd like to find out what the hell is going on here and in that the guy isn't exactly helpful.

He's wearing long robes, as are the ones following him. Somehow his entire appearance screams 'priest' at Jack, and apparently he believes Jack to be the god needed for his religion.

It's slightly unsettling. He usually prefers people worshipping him in a different way and a very different setting.

Suddenly the eyes of his assigned guide widen and she steps back further.

"It's you!" she gasps. "Forgive me, I did not recognize you!" She turns, looks at the other passers-by that have gathered around them, most of them still sporting expressions of confused curiosity instead of downright worship. "The hero of legend has returned to us," she declares. "The Protector of Kradaat is honouring us with his presence once again!"

The effect is immediate. Whispers run through the crowd and then, all of a sudden, everyone is bowing their heads. The young woman that has refused to be Jack's guide earlier has tears in her eyes, throwing him pleading gazes. Jack can only throw blank gazes back at her, unable to comfort her as long as no one tells him what the hell is going on.

He is about to risk seeming very, very stupid by posing the dangerous question of who exactly they think he is when the old priest raises his voice to speak to the people. Jack is almost sure his words can he heard even at the other end of the city.

"I have grave news to you!" he calls. "The lost spirit of the Demon of Old Times has returned to our land seeking revenge, longing to bring chaos and destruction upon us once again!"

Shock and disbelief travel from one person to the next. Jack can see the fear on their faces as all colour drains from them. Mothers pull their children close.

"But you need not fear!" the old man continues. "For as you can see the Protector of Kradaat has returned in our time of need to banish the Ghost of Evil to the land of Shadows once again!"

There is a brief silence. Then a voice was raises, another – and soon the crowd is cheering and rejoicing and seeing the look of relief and hope on their faces Jack simply doesn't have the heart to tell them that he hasn't come with the intention of banishing anything.

The priest turns back to him, once again bowing deeply.

"The Spirit of Evil has already been entrapped, sealed away so it can not inflict any further harm upon this land," he says, much quieter. "But only your power will be strong enough to send it back to the shadow grounds."

"Well…" Jack begins slightly helplessly. "Of course it is. That what I came for, after all."

-

"I always knew you would come back to us, as the legend foretold!" a handsome young man in long robes tells Jack eagerly as he's walking through the halls of the temple, surrounded by all the priests and novices. "Others have doubted you, have doubted the truth of the stories. But how could they call them myths when the scars are so plain to see everywhere in the city? And when the return of the Demon of Time was announced I knew you would not abandon us."

Jack only nods in response, still looking for a way to find out what he's supposed to have done without attracting too much attention. He spots his opportunity when the old priest, Haracas, asks him to wait in the 'Hall of Pictures' while he organizes all for the great hero's stay in this realm.

A number of young and attractive priests and priestesses stay behind to serve and pleasure him in any way he wants, but Jack is distracted by the images engraved into the walls. Images telling his story.

And it is _his_ story – there can be no doubt about it.

The images are plain, lacking detail, but the dark haired man in the long grey coat is quite obviously him. The large image that takes up half of the northern wall shows him standing on a pile of rubble, his coat blowing in the wind. He is holding a spear and his hands are covered in blood but he is smiling as he looks down onto the city shown in the background. A hero watching over his people.

Jack does not recall ever having been to this place before but his clothes tell him that this didn't happen in the two years gone from his memory. It doesn't confuse him though, at least not more than this entire incident does anyway. He is a time traveller and knows that things don't happen to everyone in the same order. One day he will come to this planet's past and save the people from a terrible demon, causing them to worship him for ages. It could be worse.

When Jack takes a look at the smaller pictures running along the walls like pages from a book he discovers that it _is_ worse.

The story they tell begins near the entrance of the hall and Jack walks along the engraved images with a growing feeling of dread. He sees a traveller from the stars, setting foot on this planet on the same hill the TARDIS is standing. Like the Jack of the pictures he's wearing a long coat and like his it is blowing in the wind, but this man's coat is black and the sky is dark. Jack sees two of the moons, the neighbouring planet with its rings, and another object he can't identify in a picture this crude, shown in all images as if it had a meaning. Maybe it has. Right now he couldn't care less.

The traveller known to these people as the Demon of Old Time walks down the hill to the city, and everywhere he steps the grass dies. Stone crumbles under his touch. In the city the people cower in fear and many turn to dust as the Demon approaches. One image shows him standing on the remains of a building with his arms raised and on the ground below skeletons are lying. He leaves the city in ruins.

Then the Hero arrives, down from the stars in a blaze of glory. He comes to the city carrying a spear that glows in a holy light and the survivors gather around him, falling to their knees at his feet. And the Hero blesses them with his strength and his love and he goes to hunt the Demon, who fears his might and flees to the hills and the woods. But the Hero finds him and they battle in front of the distant moons. The forest withers around them but the terrible powers of the Demon can not touch the Hero who gains the upper hand and binds him with his magical bonds.

The last panels show the people celebrating the Hero's victory and the Hero going back to the stars he came from. But it's the image before that that captures Jack's attention and keeps it, while his hands clench and tremble:

In it the Demon is bound to the ruined trunk of an ancient tree, his coat gone, his clothes torn and bloody, and the Hero, in all his glory, plunges the glowing spear through his heart.

And Jack feels his own heart stop for a moment. He can't breathe.

Because the depiction of the Demon is both simplistic and exaggerated, showing him with glowing eyes and claws instead of hands, but it is still painfully obvious that the man these pictures is the Doctor.

Getting killed by Jack.

-

"The astronomers predict that the Dark Tear will rule the sky once again in two days," a voice disturbs Jack's thoughts. He turns sharply and sees the young priest who spoke to him before, looking at the picture before him. He reaches out and his finger traces the outline of the dark object in front of the ringed planet. Jack assumes that it is a moon of that planet and can imagine how rarely it is seen on this world of almost constant daylight. "It has always been a bringer of harm and woe," the man continues. "The last time it brought us the Demon of Old Time, but it also sent you here to fight him. Now again his shadow returns at the time of its appearance, and once again you are here to protect us." His voice sounds dreamy and there is boundless admiration in his eyes when he looks at Jack. "History is calling for a repetition."

"Is it?" Jack's own voice sounds flat.

"Yes. High Priest Haracas is now setting the stages. In two days, when the Dark Tear is in the sky and the gates to the Land of Shadows open again you will send the Demon's ghost back where it belongs and seal the gate forever." They seem to have planned this very well.

Jack finds himself unable to share his enthusiasm.

"Kill him again, you say?"

"Send back his spirit," the man corrects him, as if that was obvious.

"Kill him again," Jack repeats, not paying attention. He laughs a little. "I killed him!"

"My Lord?" The young man is confused now but that's only fair, Jack thinks. He whirls around when Haracas steps into the hall, running over to the old man in long strides.

"You said the Demon was already entrapped!" he recalls. "Take me to him!"

"You will see him when we all do: on the ceremony in two days," the old man assures him.

"I want to see him now!"

"My Lord, it will bring bad luck should the two of you meet before the appointed hour!"

Jack snorts and pulls the man close, bending down so the priest can feel his breath on his wrinkled face.

"Nonsense! There's only one thing causing bad luck to you in particular, and everyone in this room, and that would be me if you don't take me to him!"

Haracas considers his words.

"As you wish, my Lord," he gives in. "You must know best. Forgive me fore questioning your wisdom."

"We'll see," Jack mutters darkly as he follows the priest out of the hall.

-

There's a small cell in the cavern under the temple. One single cell, meant for one single prisoner. When they build the temple to worship Jack the Hero they also included a place to keep his dreaded opponent should he ever return. How thoughtful of them!

Jack has to suppress the urge to kill when he looks through the bars into the small room.

"As you can see we used the bounds you left behind for this purpose to bind him," Haracas explains with pride. As if there was anything to feel pride for.

"Open the cell!" Jack commands, his voice so hard that no one dares to protest.

On his way Jack saw single pictures describing his myth all over the temple, and now they make him sick. Even in here, in this cell they can be found. There is one on either side of the wall the Doctor is chained to: One showing Jack in his victorious pose, bathed in a ray of sunshine, as if to remind the captured demon all the time who defeated him.

Only he cannot not remember it, because it hasn't happened to him yet. But it will in a past that is their future.

The other picture shows the end of their battle, with the Doctor dying by Jack's spear.

"Oh, fucking hell!" the human curses, rushing over to his friend. "I'm sorry, Doctor, I'm so sorry!"

"Don't be silly," the Doctor orders. His clothes are dirty and a little torn, his lips split and his skin marked with bruises, but apart from that he seems remotely fine. "It's not your fault!"

"I fear it is. These people seem to see me as some kind of saviour."

"I noticed." The Doctor states dryly, nodding in the direction of the large image of Jack. "Did they tell you what is going on?"

"There's some legend…" Jack begins. He clears his throat, trying not to sound desperate. "A legend that someone who looked like you came from the stars and caused destruction, and someone who looked like me killed him."

"Yes, I've seen the pictures." The Doctor nods. "And since we're both time travellers we can assume that the ones looking like you and me have indeed been you and me. But I'm more interested what will happen in the future."

"That is the future," Jack whispers, not quite getting how the Doctor can not care.

"The immediate future, Jack," the Doctor says impatiently. "We'll worry about the other thing once we're out of here."

"The immediate future seems to be pretty much the same," Jack admits. "They expect me to kill you again in a ceremony in two days."

The Doctor still doesn't seem too concerned. "That won't happen," he states. "I'm going to survive long enough to come back here at an earlier time."

"Of course it won't happen!" Jack calls out, louder than is wise. "Because I'm not going to hurt you!"

In the silence that follows he can hear the priests gasp for air.

-

It would have been better to keep quiet Jack decides two days later, when he is escorted towards the inner yard of the temple by two strong and armed guards. The past two days he's spend chained to the column in the centre of the Hall of Pictures, staring at the engraved images and trying to justify his actions to himself. Eventually he gave up and accepted that nothing he did has improved their situation in any way.

Whatever will happen exactly when Jack and the Doctor come here the next time, for these people it was centuries ago. Most of the story has been lost over time and they made up their own parts to fill the gabs, as it always happens when history becomes legend and legend myth. The Jack in these pictures isn't the real Jack anymore, it is a figure of their imagination. And of course theses priests claim to know exactly what is the truth and what isn't. So when Jack declared their legends were wrong and the Doctor was his friend and should be released immediately they came to the conclusion that their once noble hero has been corrupted by the darkness of the demon and must now be saved from the evil that took over his soul. Though no one has given him any details Jack can imagine how this 'saving' will happen.

The temple yard is large and on the pillars that circle the centre Jack can see more pictures of him and the Doctor. The moment of the hero's victory seems to be a favourite of the engravers and Jack can't help the shiver than runs down his spine every time he sees that.

Legends change with time. Looking at these pictures Jack is aware that they may not have much to do with the actual events. The Doctor isn't known for terrorizing primitive civilisations so whatever will bring them to this planet's past probably won't be his friend's urge to kill and destroy. But all legends have some truth woven into them, some unchanging facts. There is no doubt that some day they _will_ return here, and Jack fears he also knows the outcome of the visit when he looks at his engraved self plunging a spear through the engraved Doctor's heart. The future, set in stone.

All the priests and priestesses have gathered in the yard, along with a number of important looking men in black clothes. Their deaths as a high society event.

The Doctor is already there when Jack is led to the centre of the yard where two plain pillars of wood have been erected. One of them is surrounded by a pile of wood and Jack's stomach turns.

He comes to stand beside the Doctor, who has been chained to the other pillar with the same chains used in his cell. Jack notices because something about them seems a little odd.

"Are you okay?" he whispers. The Doctor nods.

"And you?" A second of hesitation. "They didn't kill you, did they?"

"Not yet," Jack assures him. "They gave me the best food and drink and apologized every day that they had to chain me up like a common criminal."

"Quite right to. You're a holy criminal, after all."

"I fail to see the humour," says Jack grimly, but then the Doctor isn't smiling.

"As do I, in fact," the Time Lord admits. "I fear this has the potential of becoming a very uncomfortable day for you."

"Oh, you noticed!" Jack laughs harshly. "Well, you're lucky. You'll only have to die once today."

Despite his words he doesn't really believe that the Doctor will die here, and not only because the stones of the temple predict a different future for them. Something like this won't be the end for them. Somehow they'll get away, because they always do.

The Doctor doesn't look particularly worried either. Just a little.

No one interrupts their quiet conversation. Despite having fallen from grace Jack is still their legendary hero, and the Doctor is believed to be a terrible demon, or at least his spirit. Most of the people hardly dare to look at them for long.

They fall silent anyway when Haracas enters the yard, wearing white, noble looking robes and an aura of authority. In his hand he carries a long, vicious looking spear Jack recognizes as the weapon depicted everywhere in the temple.

The high priest stands in the centre of the ring formed by the stone pillars, his back to his prisoners as he addresses the men and women gathered at the edge of the yard.

"Soon the light will leave us and the Dark Tear will rule over this world once again!" he begins, his voice loud and clear. "The gates to the shadow grounds have been opened but the Protector of Kradaat will seal them shut, so that no shadow will haunt this world ever again." He turns to look at the chained Doctor. "The Spirit of the Demon of Old Time has already escaped the Land of Shadows, seeking to bring harm over the people of Kradaat once more. But using this holy weapon the Protector will banish it and seal the gates between the worlds with this false form's dying breath!" He raises the spear for emphasis and the crowd makes suitably subdued noises of amazement.

"When did they have the time to make up this bullshit?" Jack mutters to the Doctor and shuts up when Haracas looks directly at him.

"However, the noble spirit of the Hero has been darkened, corrupted! When the Demon returned he poured a part of his own evil essence into the Hero's heart, turning him into his servant!" There are worried noises coming from the people but not enough to assume they haven't been prepared for this. Or that the old man isn't about to offer a solution.

He does so a second later:

"Before the Hero can do his noble work," he says, "we will have to free him as he once freed us. As the sky darkens the ritual fire will bring us light and the evil that has taken over our Protector's spirit will perish in the purifying flames!"

"Purifying flames!" Jack echoes with a sneer. "And here I was hoping they'd come up with something at least remotely original!"

"At this time the humans on Earth are too busy learning to walk on two legs to burn anyone," the Doctor points out. "So technically these people had the idea first."

"Whatever." The sky above them is beginning to darken as the large moon is slowly wandering in front of the one visible sun. "I wonder if old Haracas has taken into consideration that ashes aren't particularly helpful when it comes to killing."

The Doctor doesn't answer but in his face Jack can see concern. Like him he's probably imagining how these people will react when Jack, purified or not, comes back to life after having been burned to a crisp.

Strong hands grab his shoulders and pull him away from the Time Lord. The weapons of the guards poke Jack it the utmost respectful way until he climbs up the pile of wood and allows a younger priest to bind him to the pillar. He swallows dryly. This isn't going to be fun.

When he comes back Haracas will see it as the confirmation of all his beliefs. He'll kill Jack because he refused to kill the Doctor, and when he returns to life he'll expect him to be healed and ask him to kill the Doctor again. If Jack still refuses, which he's planning to, he'll probably be burned again, not having been purified enough. He can see it quite clearly.

If he keeps refusing these people will eventually get over the idea that only he can banish the demon and find someone else to kill the Doctor. Standing on the stake watching the man with the torch enter the yard Jack begins to realise that they are right now in serious trouble.

The air smells ever so slightly of rust and age.

His only hope is that the first time he returns from the Land of Shadows himself he can take them by surprise and escape. Free the Doctor and get away from here. But he's bound with chains of metal that will survive the fire and his hope is slim.

The torch is passed on to Haracas who's using great gestures to set fire on the wood Jack is standing on. The crowd is cheering openly now – not only because their beloved hero is about to be burned before their eyes but also because of the light the fire provides. On this planet the night never falls and the darkness makes then nervous. As the smoke fills his nostrils Jack can't exactly summon a lot of sympathy.

There is a loud crack that isn't caused by burning wood. The smoke is obscuring his view but Jack can see enough to make out the tall, slim form of the Doctor stepping away from the pillar he was bound to.

"This stops now!" he says.

And suddenly everyone falls silent.

With a low crack the pillar falls, and so does the spear of a young guard who turns and runs with a cry of fear. Some of the crowd follow, but Haracas stays rooted to the spot, his face white as a sheet. Another guard gathers his courage and attacks the Doctor but his weapon rusts and crumbles in his hands and he follows his friend into the safety of the temple.

"Release this man!" the Doctor commands. He steps closer to the fire that is beginning to lap on the legs of Jack's trousers and all of a sudden the flames die. In the sudden darkness horrified voices are heard but no one else attempts to leave.

"Release him or you will know my wrath!" the Doctor's voice echoes over the yard.

"Never!" Haracas answers, but his voice is trembling. "You have no power in this world, Shadow!"

By way of responding the Doctor places a fine boned hand onto the wood that has been burning only seconds before. At first nothing seems to happen, but then Jack notices the smell of decaying wood in the disappearing smoke and suddenly he's sinking down as the pile he's standing on begins to shrink. It also seems to get a lot softer.

One minute later he's standing on earth.

The darkness isn't complete. Up in the sky the Residion nebula is glowing in blue, green and yellow and in the soft light Jack can see the Doctor standing tall amidst the people wanting his death. He turns to look at Jack and in the dark his eyes are glowing ever so slightly.

And there are a hundred things Jack would say to him if he wasn't so busy staring in complete and utter amazement.

The Doctor steps up to him, touches his chains and they fall to the ground. As his friend turns back to the terrified priest Jack bends to pick them up but the metal falls apart in his hand, rusted through, a victim of age.

"I have all the power I had before, and more," the Time Lord declares. "We will leave this world in peace, but be aware: if anyone tries to stop us this city will not be spared, and this time there is no one to save you!"

His voice echoes between the walls surrounding the yard. When they walk away no one follows.

-

As they make their way out of the city Jack expects a spear in the back any moment and he keeps looking around. The streets are deserted. Everyone is inside their homes, hiding from the dark and the terrifying power of the Demon.

The Time Lord. Hell.

"What did you do there?" Jack asks as they leave the last houses behind, climb up the hill. Up in the sky they can see the rings of the planet and its moon a dark shadow before them. "That was…"

"Stupid," the Doctor interrupts him. "Dangerous. But this layer of time is already full of cracks. Something has messed with the age of this place and it's left scars…"

"You manipulated time." Jack doesn't know what to think of this. "Such a risk only to save me from the fire?"

"The fabric of time is fragile," the Doctor admits. "The balance… but here it is holding. Stable. All those cracks couldn't shake it…"

Jack looks at him sharply. Back in the temple the Doctor's voice has been resonating with power. Now it's shaky and quiet and the light is gone from his eyes. His face is white in the dim light.

"What's wrong?" the human asks concerned, just before the Doctor sinks to his knees, struggling for breath.

"Hard…" he presses out, but after a moment gets back to his feet.

Jack looks back to the city with worry, then up the hill. The slope is steep and if the people of Kradaat notice the Doctor's weakness they might attack.

The Time Lord trembles with the effort of moving when Jack slides his arm around his waist and helps him up the hill, supporting more and more of his weight. The TARDIS is almost in touching distance when Jack's friend falls to his knees again. He doubles over and his body shakes as he retches dryly.

Jack sits beside him, rubs his back helplessly until the retching stops.

"I'm okay," the Doctor assures him in a shaking whisper. "Okay…"

"Of course," Jack sarcastically agrees. He takes out his key and opens the door of the TARDIS before he helps his friend to his feet once again. Inside the Doctor collapses onto the worn narrow couch, breathing hard.

"You look ill." Jack doesn't attempt to keep the worry out of his voice but the Doctor shakes his head weakly.

"Exhausted," he clarifies. "Takes a lot of strength." He sinks down until he's curled up on the couch and closes his eyes. "Just let me sleep…"

"This is hardly the best place for a nap," Jack points out. The Doctor's feet dangle over the edge and if he moves even a little he'll fall off. But the Time Lord doesn't react to Jack's words and he doesn't look like he'll move anytime soon.

The couch still doesn't look very comfortable and the Doctor is dirty and hurt. Jack looks at him thoughtfully, wondering if he'll be able to carry him to his room. Reaching the conclusion that the TARDIS will probably locate that room near enough and that the Doctor is just skin and bones anyway he decides to try. Slides his arms around the Time Lord's shoulders and under the back of his knees and is surprised how easy it is to lift him. The Doctor hangs in his arms like a child, completely motionless, and his breath is slightly wheezing.

Jack finds his room behind the first door he tries.

Then the Time Lord is lying on his bed, still looking terribly pale and ill. His cheeks are sunken in and his face is covered in sweat. Tearing those objects from the flow of time must have exhausted him beyond belief. When he presses his palm to the narrow chest Jack feels his hearts beating far too fast.

"Sleep," he mumbles to the still figure. "If that's all it takes… You're definitely sleeping."

It is a rare sight. The Doctor doesn't need nearly as much sleep as a human and in all the time Jack has been travelling with him he has only once or twice caught him taking a quick nap. He has, however, seen him unconscious quite often.

The human doesn't think anything short of an explosion can wake his friend right now, but he's still as careful as possible as he undresses him.

The Doctor's thin body is covered in bruises all over. Apparently his captors haven't been particularly gentle with him, yet the only injuries that need to be cared for are on his wrists, where the skin has been excoriated by the shackles. It happens quite a lot when they are captured and Jack knows where to find everything he needs. The Doctor's wrists are delicate things.

Just like everything about him seems delicate right now.

Seeing his friend almost completely naked, still and defenceless on that bed Jack feels a surge of affection run through him, and the well known desire for this man who is so beautiful, so vulnerable and so incredibly impressive. It's easy to suppress. Jack has a lot of practice in suppressing his desire when it comes to the Doctor who must know that his friend wants him but can't possible imagine how much.

With a quiet sigh Jack drapes the blanket over the Time Lord and leaves for the console room, to make sure the outer doors are locked. As long as the Doctor is out they can't leave and he would rather not have a bunch of paranoid natives in the TARDIS, even though the ship would probably make sure they never found them in the maze of corridors. They will have a lot to talk about once the Doctor is back with him.

Jack's left leg is hurting where the flames have reached his trousers and burned the cloth away. He examines the wound, decides that it isn't worth dying for and treats it in the infirmary before going to his own room to change into clean clothes.

Eventually he returns to the Doctor and stretches out beside him, to join him in his well deserved slumber.

He dreams of the Dark Tear ruling the sky and of blood on his hands.

-

He wakes up with a start, drenched in sweat, his heart racing. Beside him the Doctor is sleeping still, peacefully, alive. Some colour has returned to his skin and his heartbeats, his breathing has calmed down. He's recovering.

For a long time Jack sits on the bed and watches him. Then he reaches out and ever so softly runs his thumb over his friend's cheek. Bending down he breathes a kiss to his cool forehead, then one to each of his eyelids. The Doctor doesn't stir. Jack's fingers touch his slightly parted lips, linger. He feels the Doctor's faint breath on his skin. It mingles with Jack's own when he leans in again and his lips hover over the Time Lord's, almost touching. Contemplating.

He retreats with a sigh. Runs a hand through the oblivious man's hair, down his throat until it touches the blanket covering him. He isn't going to kill him. He doesn't care what the stones are telling – how could he ever hurt this man who has done so much for the cosmos and received so little in return?

It's hard to turn away and leave him alone.

Jack's leg is still hurting and his wrists feel a little raw from the chains though they have been more comfortable than the Doctor's. Jack has been an honoured prisoner after all. Only the best for him.

He still isn't quite over the Doctor's little display of power. Looking at him it is easy to forget that he's anything but helpless.

He finds the kitchen next door and the TARDIS blesses him with coffee that's as good as Ianto's. They both know how he likes it best.

The Doctor still sticks to his tea. He's never been much of a coffee person.

When Jack steps out of the bathroom an hour later the Time Lord is in the console room, drinking tea. From a cup decorated with a picture of two little bunnies. They're blue.

"How are you?" Jack wants to know and the Doctor beams at him.

"Splendid!" he says. "Told you all I needed was rest. As good as new!" He looks down onto his wrists as if he only now noticed the bandages wrapped around them. "Well, almost."

His hair is damp and he's wearing clean clothes, just like Jack. The realisation that they must have taken their showers at pretty much the same time makes the human curse the fact that the TARDIS has so many bathrooms.

"Well, time to leave, don't you think?" The Doctor takes a look at the screen that's currently showing the outside. "There seem to be people sneaking around the TARDIS."

"Have been for a while," Jack nods. "A little bit longer and they'll start throwing stones at it. Or set fire. They like fire here." He grimaces.

"Right, yeah. It didn't hurt you, did it?" the Doctor asks as if he only now remembered Jack's adventure at the stake.

"Not at all," the human lies. "The flames never reached me."

If the Doctor has seen his clothes catching fire he doesn't show. In fact it's impossible to tell if he's even listening, never taking his eyes off the screen.

"They appear to be building some kind of catapult," he observes with amazement. "Oh well. What do you think, shall we give them a story to tell their grandchildren?"

"They're already telling enough stories," Jack grumbles as the Doctor pulls a lever and the TARDIS dematerializes. Jack watches the column in the middle of the console move up and down for a wile, while his friend is busy setting the coordinates for their next destination.

"Doctor," he says.

"Hm?" The Doctor doesn't look up from his controls.

"I'm going to kill you."

"You are?" Now the Doctor does look up, an expression of surprise and confusion on his pretty face. "Why?"

"I don't know. But the legends of those people say so!"

"Oh, that!" The Time Lord smiles with realisation, then turns serious again. "I wouldn't worry about it."

"How could I not?" Jack explodes. "We'll get there again, in the past. You said so yourself. And whatever happens then will end with me killing you. That gives us plenty of reason for worry!"

"Uh, no. Actually it doesn't." Apparently the Doctor reads in Jack's face that more explanation is needed. "According to the pictures in the temple it happened when the Dark Tear was last seen in the sky. That was more than five hundred years ago. Who can tell how much of that legend is actually true? And it might be centuries in the future for us. No one knows what will happen until then. Maybe I turn evil for some reason, in which case I would want you to kill me!"

"Oh, come on!" If possible Jack's expression darkens even more.

"Well, in that moment I might not, being evil and all, but from where I'm standing I'd want you to. Also," he quickly adds when Jack opens his mouth for a rather rude reply, "it could be a trick."

"A trick?" the human echoes.

"Of course. As I said, we can't tell what happened. Maybe you will pretend to kill me to fool those people but don't actually do so."

It's a good point, Jack has to admit. He feels the cold knot in his guts lessen ever so slightly. It's a far fetched hope but it reminds him that the future is not set after all. Not in detail. Something will happen, but all they can see of the actual events is a shadow.

"Besides, those pictures showed you poking a spear through my heart, didn't they?" The Doctor's eyes twinkle. "Well, I've got two of those. That won't necessarily kill me."

And at that point the hope takes over and Jack allows himself to believe that he won't kill the Time Lord after all. He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again he steps over to his friend and pulls him into a tight hug.

In the days that follow though he often finds his mind wandering back to the engraved pictures and the story they told him. The doubt comes back, because he knows whatever they will do on that planet, there is pain waiting in their future. Maybe he won't murder his friend. But maybe he will.

The Doctor never seems to worry about it: What will happen will happen and they won't know until they get there. The never again talk about it.

But Jack silently vows not to let his friend set foot on that world ever again. If they don't go there he can't get hurt.

The knowledge that he's only fooling himself doesn't stop him from doing so.


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor avoids thinking of it most of the time. He makes his preparations, and waits.

It's not the memory of their inevitable future that plagues him as he's standing in a deserted city one year later, on a world near the edge of the silver devastation. The storm has carried sand into the empty streets but now it's raining. The water falls relentlessly from the grey sky, pouring down on him. Soaking his clothes.

He's not wearing his coat.

There's thunder in the air and lightning. The Doctor likes it. On an abandoned world the storm can't hurt anyone.

Behind him, next to the TARDIS, Jack is standing. The Doctor can't tell if he's watching the weather or him. He's just glad the human didn't try to drag him out of the rain like a concerned mother hen. He knows Jack is caring for him and appreciates his friendship but sometimes his concern is as oppressive as his admiration.

The Doctor can't live up to his expectations. Can't give him anything in return.

He feels like he's owing him something.

The thunder is getting louder. Dalek warships sound like this when they break through the atmosphere of a planet, but the lightning is just lightning.

The Doctor doesn't return to the TARDIS because he wants to but because he must.

Jack follows him like a shadow. He never asked why this world is empty. He hasn't spoken at all since the TARDIS brought them here and the Doctor is grateful for it.

Neither of them speaks now, when the Time Lord stands before the console, lost and alone. He doesn't know where to go. His mind is elsewhere.

When a large, warm hand slides around his waist from behind he doesn't react. Sensing his mood Jack tries to comfort him in the only way he feels safe with: physical contact. He holds the Doctor against his own body and for once the Doctor lets him. Forces himself to relax and leans back, into Jack's embrace. When a minute later warm lips touch his skin where neck meets shoulder he closes his eyes and doesn't stop it. His hearts are racing as he fights the urge to get away.

Jack hesitates, used to him stopping his playful advances before they cross a certain line. Only this is not playful and the Doctor isn't running. The hand that slides beneath the Time Lord's soaked shirt is almost like a question. He shudders and says nothing.

Jack's hair brushes against the Doctor's skin when he goes back to kissing his neck. The hand under his shirt loses its hesitation quickly as Jack realises that the Doctor isn't going to stop him this time. The touch remains careful though – the borders have been redrawn and Jack doesn't know where they run now. He's testing out his limits, always waiting for the point the Doctor won't let him pass.

The Time Lord tenses when fingers slip into the waistband of his pants. Jack's other hand runs up his neck, comes to lie on his cheek, and then the fingers wander from his pants to his hip, and he is turned around in Jack's arms. Facing him.

The eyes that gaze into his are full of wonder but also clouded by so much lust it is frightening. Only a second passes before Jack closes the gap between them and presses his lips to the Doctor's. Pulling him into the first kiss they share that doesn't taste of goodbye.

The Doctor measures time in heartbeats before he leans into the kiss ever so slightly, parts his lips and feels Jack's hot tongue slide into his mouth.

It has been a long time since he's been kissed like this by anyone. Jack is attacking his mouth with increasing force, letting go of his restraints and fights for a dominance the Doctor never intended to deny him. The desire is taking him over now – if the Doctor wants to stop him he will. Until that point Jack has no reason to hold back.

The Doctor is pushed back, pressed against the console. One of Jack's hands is finding its way between his legs and this time the Doctor does flinch back. This is going too far.

Jack doesn't stop kissing him immediately. Just a little further and he won't be able to stop himself at all and the Doctor realises he can't let it happen yet. To do this he needs to relax, and that he can't do. Not here.

Jack looks almost hurt, almost betrayed as he pulls away. The Doctor holds him back.

"Bedroom," he whispers.

Less than a minute later he is pushed down onto a soft mattress and a part of him is glad this is happing in Jack's room and not in his. Then Jack's body is covering his own and his hands are all over him, getting him out of the soaked suit. He should help, the Doctor thinks. Reaches for Jack's shirt but the human pushed his hands away, holds them down without force and kisses him deeply.

"Let me!" he commands, his voice a little breathless. "Just relax…"

Relax. The Doctor closes his eyes, concentrates. Takes control of his body and its reactions, allows himself to feel Jack's touch in a way he hasn't felt anything in long time. Almost forces it to. It isn't natural, isn't familiar and as his friend's hands roam over his damp skin it is hard to keep his barriers from getting back up. He's willingly giving himself up in a situation beyond his control and it's scaring him.

He's shivering when he's completely naked but Jack's hands are warm and everywhere.

The human makes soothing noises and takes one hand away to stroke his hair and only then does the Doctor realise that he's trembling.

He closes his eyes. Concentrates on the sensations Jack's touches are giving him, makes himself view them as pleasure, as something to be enjoyed. It's hard to enjoy them when every fibre of his body is screaming to _run_.

He doesn't run.

A soft moan escapes his lips when Jack's hand finds its way between his thighs again and if his friend is aware that it could as well have been a sob he doesn't seem to care. His touches are tender, loving, but in no way hesitant. He worships the Doctor with determination and the Time Lord realises he's a sacrifice on his own altar and Jack won't stop now, can't stop.

He shudders and gasps as those hot fingers run up and down his length, stroke and caress and apply pressure in all the right places. His own fingers twist into the sheets and his back arches but a part of his mind is watching all Jack does, committing it to memory, for how could he ever give any of this back human if he doesn't know how?

Right now he's fearing that moment more than anything. Jack is used to more experienced partners – the Doctor can only disappoint him.

Under Jack's expert touches his penis is filling with blood, getting hard. The Doctor is far too aware of the processes going on in his body to be embarrassed by this. He's letting it happen after all. It's what Jack is expecting.

His eyes flutter shut and he doesn't stop the moan that's rising in his throat. By now the Time Lord is breathing hard and his hearts are hammering in his chest and the sensations are no less frightening for the pleasure they send through his body.

Then the movement of Jack's fingers stop. The Doctor opens his eyes just a bit and, gazing through his lashes, finds the human staring at him with a look of dazed fascination on his face.

"And I thought you couldn't possibly be any more beautiful," he breathes out, his voice clouded by the desire that has taken the Doctor's friend away and replaced him with a creature neither of them has any control over. He's at the mercy of a stranger – the thought makes the Doctor shiver the moment Jack leans in and kisses him, tenderly at first but with quickly increasing passion. His lips soon stray away from the Doctor's mouth, explore his neck, suck on his earlobe before wandering down his body. The Time Lord's stomach tenses when they kiss and lick around his navel, and he tries to push himself into the mattress while the hand still stroking his penis is making him arch into the touch. He doesn't think he can stand this much longer when Jack's mouth wanders even lower and his lips suddenly wrap around the tip of the Doctor's length.

Something's missing and the Doctor can't forget that no matter how hard he tries. So close to another being of any species their minds should touch, should mingle on the most basic of levels. His telepathic senses reach out and find nothing, running against a wall fixed in space and time. Instead the power of Jack's wrongness is crushing down on the Doctor and the instinct to get away from him struggles against the pressure building in his body, demanding release.

The rational part of his mind shuts down completely as the hot human tongue pushes him over the edge and shudders run through his body again and again. His penis goes limp in Jack's mouth when the blood leaves it.

The human's face sports an expression of puzzlement as he pulls away. The Doctor needs a moment before he understands. He feels he has to explain, about his species not reproducing that way anymore and thus not having had any need for sperm for many generations. But all he's able to get out is a mumbled "Sorry."

Jack chuckles. Kisses him again, on the stomach.

"I want you," this thing he's become says breathlessly. "Desperately. I don't think I've ever wanted anyone this much."

"You just had me," the Doctor reminds him, still trembling with the aftershocks. Despite his body screaming at him to stay where he is and linger in this feeling he tries to get up, willing to give Jack the pleasure he craves, or at least attempt to. But the human presses him down.

"Don't move," he tells him. A flash of white teeth as he grins. "You're definitely relaxed now."

For a moment he disappears from the Doctor's field of vision. He feels the mattress shift as Jack moves and then he's back again, nudging the other's tights apart with fingers that feel slippery and much cooler than before.

The Doctor doesn't understand, not completely. A part of him is glad that Jack doesn't expect him to do anything just yet. Another part of him is terrified.

He tenses when those cool and slippery fingers find his entrance and toy with it for a moment before pushing inside. This time it is discomfort that makes him twist his fingers in the sheets of the bed but Jack doesn't stop. The strain grows as a second finger is added. This is going to hurt.

Even during his relentless effort to break into the Doctor's body Jack's other hand gently rubs his tense stomach, trying to relax him. The Doctor does his best, and fails.

He'd have felt sorry had Jack been denied his pleasure because of his lack of self control, so maybe he should feel glad when the other doesn't stop.

Keeping his face as blank as possible he endures quietly until the intruding fingers push deeper and the pain mingles with unexpected pleasure. The Doctor feels lost, like a child. He wants Jack to stop yet he doesn't. This state alone is enough to make him want to scream.

Eventually Jack withdraws his fingers and replaces them with his penis – the Doctor bites his lips and his back now arches because it _burns_.

"It's alright," Jack mumbles, pushing deeper still. He's working in carefully and the Doctor knows he's holding back for him. And it hurts but the pain is bearable. The Time Lord has just a vague idea how much self-restraint it must cost the human to do this so slowly and not give in to the animalistic urges that have taken over him and just dive into the Doctor's body with all the force he can muster. He doesn't want to hurt him, the Doctor knows. Jack never wants to cause him any pain and the thought hurts more than the hard length that's wandering deeper and deeper into his body. It also gives the Doctor the strength to blind out the pain and concentrate solely on the pleasure that begins to spread through him once again as Jack settles into an easy rhythm, hitting all the right places.

But even Jack – blessed Jack with his rouge and noble heart – can only hold back for so long. The Doctor is trembling beneath him, his whimpers turning to moans as his friend rocks in and out, only his hands on the Doctor's hips keeping him from being pushed into the headboard as force and speed of his thrusts increase. Above him Jack is grunting, his face a mask of concentration and pure, undignified pleasure. It makes all this worth it, the Doctor thinks distantly as Jack pushes into him one last time and comes with a _howl_. It's something he can give to his friend simply by lying still and spreading his legs. It's not much but it makes Jack happy, for a moment, and maybe it is repaying him a little bit for everything being friends with the Doctor has done to him and will do in the future.

They're making memories here – memories for Jack to keep fondly in days to come. Or so the Doctor hopes.

The human pulls out and collapses onto him, spent, exhausted. Bare flesh on bare flesh, warm skin on cool. His lips move soundlessly against the side of the Doctor's neck before he presses a soft kiss to his skin, then licks, and licks again because Time Lord sweat tastes different from human sweat. The Doctor wraps his arms around the large form that's burying him, strokes that damp hair. Seconds later Jack is breathing deeply, fast asleep.

Trapped under him, naked and exposed and waiting for his hearts to slow down the Doctor stares up at the ceiling for the rest of the night.

-

Jack wakes up slowly. His mind is still groggy and confused and for a while he only snuggles closer to the warmth of the person he's pressed against. It's ridiculously comfortable. Almost perfect.

After a while the little imperfections find their way into his brain. Like the fact that he feels a bit sticky, which isn't at all unusual after a night of sex. Or the fact that it's quite cool everywhere he isn't touching the other or the sheets, due to the blanket being beneath him and not covering them as it should. Also the warm body he's pressed against isn't quite as warm as he'd expect it to be.

Blinking unwillingly in the dim light he finds himself lying on his side, curled around the bony form of another man, chest pressed to back. His face is buried in the other's ruffled brown hair and Jack can feel his breathing under the palm that's lying on his chest. Feels the beating of two hearts.

The memory comes back and Jack sits upright with a start, suddenly trembling with shock. What has he done? Fuck, what has he _done_?

The Doctor opens his eyes when Jack's warmth disappears from behind him and sits up as well, much less panicky and with moderate confusion writ over his pretty features. He doesn't look sleepy and Jack thinks that he must have pretended to sleep, only closing his eyes when he felt Jack moving behind him. He doesn't know what to make of this but it can't be good. The night before he's been full of desire, unable to think clearly from the moment the Doctor has returned his kiss, but now that his mind is working again he's aware that something is wrong here. The Doctor doesn't do this! The Doctor would never let him do that to him.

Yet he did. Jack's memory tells him of the Time Lord writhing under him, panting and whimpering and _willing_. Not once has he even tried to stop Jack from touching him and there really is no reason for him to feel like a rapist.

"Fuck, I'm sorry!" he presses out, making the Doctor frown with confused worry.

"For what?" he asks. "Jack, what's wrong?"

Jack shakes his head. He's done nothing wrong, has he? So there is no way to explain what he's sorry for. Except he did do something wrong last night. Everything he did was wrong!

"I shouldn't have done that," he says helplessly.

"Done what? Why not?" His words only added to the Doctor's confusion and now he's beginning to look guilty. Great, Jack! Just great.

Maybe it's the clueless innocence he even now sees in his friends eyes, he thinks. It's like molesting a child, and it doesn't help that he's long since accepted the Time Lord to be untouchable, completely out of his reach. He's always wanted him, ever since he met the blond girl in the union jack and the northern guy in the leather jacket in 1941 and found his charms entirely without effect when it came to the latter. Somewhere in his mind he had this picture of the Doctor as something pure and holy and now he's defiled that.

"Listen, I don't know how that happened, but I never meant to… I wasn't thinking!" Jack's laugh is desperate. "You have no idea what you're doing to me! I just lost my mind for a while and I'm sorry. It won't happen again, promise!"

The Doctor stares at him, and Jack can't really say he's surprised the wide eyed confusion doesn't leave his face. Naked and unruly on his bed he isn't any less desirable than before. If possible Jack wants him even more now that he knows what the Time Lord looks like when the pleasure takes everything away for a while, with which little noises he responses to Jack's touches…

"You didn't hurt me, Jack," the Doctor tells him. "Didn't you like it?" Now he's sounding anxious and Jack mentally kicks himself, completely at loss with this situation. "I'm sorry. I lack experience in that regard, didn't know what you where expecting of me…"

"It was wonderful!" Jack bust out, almost against his will. "I've fantasised about this forever and you where everything I wanted and more." The Doctor looks both relieved and scared at his declaration. Like a little boy. Fuck.

"I feel like I've taken advantage of you," Jack adds by way of explanation.

"You didn't."

"You can't deny that this isn't what you usually do, Doctor! I don't know what was going on in your head – hell if I _ever_ know that! But you wouldn't any other day, right? You had a moment of weakness and I…"

"Jack." The Doctor's calm voice stops Jack's rant and suddenly the Time Lord seems perfectly in control again. "I'm not human. I am stronger than you, and you know it. If I wanted to I could crush your skull between my palms. Do you really believe you could do anything to me I wouldn't want you to do?"

"Then why?" Jack asks helplessly. "Why now?" _Why not years ago?_

The Doctor shrugs, obviously not having an answer he wants to give. Jack expects to be fed something along the lines of 'I felt like it' and is surprised when his friend says:

"I'm tired of running from you. You deserve better."

"I do?" Not Jack's looking surprised. While his brain still struggles to take it all in he feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth, not quite allowing it yet. Not while he doesn't really know what this all means. "You're saying this wasn't just a terrible mistake we're not ever going to talk about?"

"It wasn't terrible and it definitely wasn't a mistake." The Doctor smiles softly, from the other side of the bed. "I enjoyed it."

Now the smile is on Jack's face, he can't help it. It's made of hope, relief, and simple happiness.

"So. Not a 'once in a lifetime' thing then?"

For a second he thinks there's new surprise on the other's face, shock even – like the possibility they could do this again never occurred to him. It's gone in an instant and Jack stops thinking about it when the Doctor says:

"Sure. Why not?"

-

The TARDIS shakes violently, throwing them to the floor as she tears away from her path and spins blindly through the vortex. To be exact she throws Jack to the floor. The Doctor once again manages to somehow land on the couch that cushions his fall. Jack secretly suspects that the ship only does things like this when her pilot is standing in front of something soft to fall on. If that was true the Doctor could avoid her bad behaviour by never standing near anything comfortable. Jack'll have to suggest that someday.

Or not. Because keeping the Doctor away from soft surfaces means keeping him away from their beds. And that, Jack decides, just isn't worth it.

As usual the Doctor is back on his feet first and at the door in an instant. Jack hurries to run after him. There'll be trouble outside. If the TARDIS throws them around like ice cubes in a glass of lemonade before ending up somewhere they definitely didn't want to go there's always trouble.

Stepping outside after the other man Jack has to admit that it doesn't look like trouble. They're greeted by a yellow sky dominated by a large red sun. It's warm, a soft wind is blowing and there even are birds singing nearby. Either that or the people inhabiting this word have a weird way of communicating with each other.

Then again, the people could be birds. Jack can't tell because he's never been here before. Every time they make an unplanned stop and Jack doesn't recognize the place they've ended up in a part of him is relieved.

What Jack thought to be a wide field at first turns out to be a large part in the centre of a city. Its seeming wildness isn't quite as wild as he thought and there are paths running through it. It's quite idyllic, Jack has to admit. So it's all the more surprising that they appear to be the only visitors.

"Bit lonely, don't you think?" the Doctor voices what Jack is thinking. "I wonder where everyone is."

"Maybe the city's deserted," Jack wonders, but there's no conviction in it. This park has been taken care of until recently. If the place had been abandoned it happened no more than two days before.

The Doctor shakes his head.

"It doesn't feel deserted," he says. "But something's definitely wrong here. Can't you feel it?"

Jack can't, knowing it means nothing. He's used to the Time Lord sensing things closed to him.

The buildings they can see are hundreds of metres high, connected by walkways hanging in the air in a way that defies the laws of static. A very advanced civilisation then, at least compared to twenty-first century Earth. The Doctor takes the path most likely leading out of the park and Jack follows, keeping his eyes open for any danger.

The Time Lord is wearing his coat, Jack only now notices. He hasn't worn it inside the TARDIS, must have grabbed it when he ran outside. Jack himself is already feeling a little warm but the Doctor, coming from a planet much cooler than Earth, seems completely unaffected by any kind of weather. It's nothing new to the human, still things small like this never chase to amaze him.

Being amazed by the Doctor is another thing Jack's used to, though he'll never grow tired of it. Most amazing for him is the fact that his fantasies about bedding the Time Lord have become true. It's been years since the Doctor has first let Jack make love to him but a part of the human is still trying to figure out how he can be so lucky.

Much hasn't changed between them since that day. Outside Jack's bedroom their life is the same it has been before. Sex doesn't happen nearly as often as Jack would like and so far he's taken his Time Lord only in bed. He's even refrained from using all the toys he's stored away in various drawers. Compared to the inventive and at times pretty extreme ways of shagging he's used to sex with the Doctor is always tame, simple. Jack has never even tried to take it beyond the most basic level for fear of scaring his friend (beloved) away. Despite his age and experience in any other respect the Time Lord is a shy and insecure lover, even after all the time they've been doing this. Passive most of the time, but Jack has quickly discovered what a fast learner his Doctor is and what kind of fantastic things he can do with his hands and mouth. He's started with copying Jack's actions but soon went beyond that, still looking slightly anxious all the time as if thinking he couldn't be good enough for someone as experienced as Jack while the human writhes desperately under his touch and tries no to lose his mind.

The last time they made love was one week ago and even then the Doctor seemed nervous and slightly lost. He never really got used to all that physical pleasure Jack can't imagine living without and every now and then gives the impression of someone desperately trying to hide his fear.

Jack has never been strong enough to think about that too much.

He knows the Doctor worries about disappointing him and nothing Jack could say would make him see how fucking perfect he is. It's Jack who's at constant risk of losing this little piece of heaven that's been granted him by whatever twist of fate. The Doctor doesn't need sex like he does and he's constantly afraid of pushing too far, of doing anything wrong. Sometimes the passion takes him away and when his brain starts working again Jack is scared for a moment, trying to recall every minute of the night before to make sure he didn't hurt the other when his rational mind stopped functioning. No matter how powerful the Time Lord may be, in the dim light of Jack's bedroom, shivering under his touch, he appears fragile, as if any wrong movement could break him

Every time Jack takes him it is the Doctor who's really dominating their lovemaking, as this can only go on as long as he allows it to.

Right now he's walking down the path with long, firm strides, so eager to discover what's going on here and how he can help. Despite the danger they're most likely walking into Jack finds himself smiling – the Doctor has no idea how alluring his shy frailty in bed is in comparison to his confident and strong personality used to controlling every situation.

At the edge of the park trees are growing, the leafs blue and purple, the trunks white. The exit is marked by an archway, and on the left side there's a tall statue of a woman. The arch is made of some sort of metal but the statue is stone. The woman portrayed reminds Jack of a Greek goddess in her long wide grown, except those never had hair this short.

There are cut flowers on the ground in front of her.

Behind the gate a different world greets them: high towers, gleaming metal and three levels of roads, the highest one almost half a mile above the ground. On any normal day these streets should be full of cars and people, the air full of noise. Now they can only hear the birds.

And a low humming that quickly grows louder. Down the straight street, on the ground level, a sleek, silvery vehicle approaches and as it comes closer Jack can see that it is lacking wheels and hovers not quite one metre above the street. The door flies open, or rather disappears from one moment to the next and a man poked his head out.

At least Jack supposes it's a man. It could be a woman or neither or something else altogether. He's never met this species before. The person is humanoid and would not look very different from him or the Doctor if it wasn't for the blue skin and the horns extruding from his head.

"What are you still doing here?" the stranger shouts and from the voice Jack decides it's safe enough to use the pronoun 'he'. "It's dangerous! Quick, come in!" He offers them his hand. The Doctor takes it after exchanging a brief glance with Jack and the man pulls him into the car. Jack follows immediately. The second he's inside the door comes back and he lands in the seat without any trace of elegance as the vehicle speeds up.

As does the Doctor. He still manages to look cute and sexy while he struggles to get back into a dignified position.

Apart from the guy pulling them in there are two others in the car, and Jack suspects one more, driving it behind the screen sealing off the front part of the vehicle. It could be an automatic car but he's seen windows from the outside, even if he couldn't look inside. A computer wouldn't need those.

The car is large enough to have room for at least four more. The Doctor and Jack are sitting on the broad bench, facing the three others. They are all wearing similar clothes. The light isn't very good but Jack notices that only two of them are blue-skinned. The last one has violet skin and white hair and is obviously female. She's also lacking horns.

Neither of them gives them any weird looks, which confirms Jack's guess that this civilisation has long since mastered space travel and aliens aren't so unusual a sight here.

"Sorry if it's a stupid question, but we've spend the last year living in a cave," the Doctor begins. "What exactly is going on here? What are we running away from?"

Now they _are_ giving them funny looks.

"How can you not know?" the woman asks in a surprisingly deep voice.

"We only just arrived on this planet," Jack explains.

"The warning is getting transmitted within a radius of ten light years."

"Well, yes, our receiver is kind of broken," the Doctor says, faking embarrassment. "That's what we came for. To have it fixed. So what's wrong?"

"The Lacarrest," the black haired man that invited them in explains, apparently not seeing the need to go into details.

"And that would be?"

They're staring again.

"It's devastated worlds! Surely you have heard of it."

"Just pretend we're a bit stupid," the Doctor grins cheerfully.

Now it's the other man who speaks. His hair is white like that of the woman and like her he doesn't have horns. Jack wonders if they're even all the same species.

"The Lacarrest is an insubstantial shadow that has come to existence on Ielanon. It has slipped into this dimension when they managed to open a gate between the universes. The entire civilisation of Ielanon is gone."

The Doctor straightens a little.

"Ah," he says.

"What does it want?" asks Jack.

"What else? Power. To live. It seems it needs a living host to stay in this realm but everyone it takes over withers away within days. So it's after the Source."

"The Source?" The Doctor raises his head sharply. "This wouldn't be Traken, by any chance?" Before anyone can answer he shakes his head to himself. "Of course not. Traken looks completely different. Besides…" He stops for the blink of an eye. "This is quite obviously Dool. And the Source is the Doolian source of power contained in the Temple of Higher Knowledge. The one that's empowering your empire, fuelling your spaceships and plainly keeping this nice city from crashing down on us."

There is this moment of silence that often occurs after the Doctor has spoken.

"How do you know that?" the horned man asks, his voice dangerously low.

"Oh, big empire you're running here. Everyone knows that." The Doctor notes their expressions and frowns. "Or don't they?"

Apparently they don't.

-

The doors disappear again and the two time travellers leave the car to step into a high, bight hall that smells of flowers. Along the walls there are statues. The clothes and hairstyles vary but Jack soon realises that they all show the woman they have already seen in the park. It seems a little strange – worshipping mythical gods is unusual on planets this far advanced.

The three Dool get out behind them and only now that they're standing does Jack notice that all of them, even the woman, are about a head's length taller than him and the Doctor. In the proper light he can also see that their clothes aren't just similar, they're identical. They're wearing uniforms.

The Doctor scowls at them. He doesn't like people in uniforms.

Mostly because they usually carry weapons. Like these three.

"This way, please," the woman says.

"You're arresting us?" Jack joins the Doctor in scowling. "What for?"

"For being suspicious," she says plainly. "You never heard of the Lacarrest yet you know about the Source."

"I know about nothing," Jack growls under his breath.

The Doctor glances at him while their new friends escort them through the building.

"The Doolan Empire spreads over a good part of the galaxy known on Earth as Andromeda. It takes its power from a Source not unlike the Eye of Harmony. Well, completely unlike the Eye of Harmony, but it works in a similar way. Makes it very unwise to fight a war against them because the power of their weapons and protective force fields never runs out. Fortunately they're basically a peace loving race. Unless they think you're 'suspicious'," he adds dryly.

The white haired man is glaring at them, otherwise the Doctor's words are ignored even though he didn't bother to speak quietly.

"Maybe not the best place for this discussion," Jack whispers none the less.

"Oh, they can't understand us," the Doctor waves off his concern. "The TARDIS isn't translating. I'm speaking English right now, and so are you."

Jack tries to get this in.

"Why isn't it translating?" he asks, causing the Doctor to look at him blankly.

"So they don't understand what we're saying," he explains as if it was obvious. Jack suspects that it is. "I don't want her to so she doesn't."

The human thinks about this for a moment, then he shrugs.

"Convenient," he has to admit. "And since we're aliens anyway they wouldn't think it weird that we speak another language." A thought crosses his mind. "Wait, what if they can translate it? Our appearances didn't surprise them so maybe they have come across humans before and know English."

"I highly doubt that. Earth won't have space travel for another several thousand years. The English language doesn't even exist yet."

Well. Good thing so many species look generally the same in this universe.

"What does this shadow thing want with the Source then?"

The Doctor shrugs.

"Nothing good, I suppose. We'll have to ask someone." Jack guesses that the translation works again when his friend addresses the woman: "Where are you taking us?"

"To Lady Inerala," he is told. "She will know if you are a danger to the Empire."

"At least this isn't Torchwood, where every alien is defined a danger by existing," the Doctor mumbles. Jack decides not to have heard him.

"Who's Inerala?" he asks the Doctor, hoping the TARDIS gets that the question is only meant for him. By the disbelieving looks the Dool throw in his direction he suspects it didn't work.

"The Goddess all these statues show. According to legend she's the one who brought Dool the Source. I always thought she was just a myth though," the Doctor answers thoughtfully.

"You think she isn't?"

The Time Lord flashes him a grin.

"We'll find out, won't we?"

"Are we speaking English now?"

"Of course. Would sound silly if we weren't."

Jack sighs and shakes his head.

"What if she's not real? We have to face some insane priests again who pretend to know what the gods are wishing?"

"No idea. Probably. But I'd say this Empire is too far advanced to be ruled by legends."

"Maybe their spiritual development didn't keep up with the technological," Jack suggests. "Well, at least they're a good looking species."

Beside him the Doctor rolls his eyes. Jack chuckles and studies the three Dool more intently. Yes, very attractive indeed. Their clothes are a plain light grey that goes along well with the colours of their skin and all of them are fit and good looking.

On their way they have passed a number of other people. A large number, to be exact, and among them Jack spotted a few violet skinned men as well as blue skinned women. So their colour isn't set by their gender like he originally thought.

"They're also known for remaining faithful to their chosen ones instead of switching partners all the time," the Time Lord informs him. "So look somewhere else. You see that identical sign on the back of their hands? It means they're married."

"To _each other_?" Jack looks with renewed interest. "All three of them?"

"A Dool marriage usually consists of three people," he is told. "One from every gender."

Jack raises his eyebrows. It's not the first time he meets a species with more than two genders and they're usually a lot of fun in bed. Too bad these three are taken then. Especially since sex is a nice way of breaking the ice after someone has pointed a gun at him for any length of time.

That he's occasionally sleeping with the Doctor doesn't mean the Time Lord wants him to stay away from other partners. On the contrary – often it seems to Jack like his lover_ wants_ him to entertain himself elsewhere, find the hard and creative action the Doctor can't give him. And Jack does so – but not nearly as often as before. He's never believed in monogamy but a part of him always feels guilty when he's sleeping with anyone else. He excuses himself with the thought that he's merely shagging these people. To the Doctor he's making love.

That his Doctor would allow anyone else to touch him Jack doesn't even imagine. The idea would drive him crazy.

"Where are we anyway?" the Time Lord asks their armed guides. "What's this building? Not the Temple of Higher Knowledge, I suppose?"

"No," the horned guy answers. Jack wonders what his function is when it comes to reproduction and if his horns have any part in it. "We're in the Temple of Inerala."

"Oh, right. Could have thought of that myself. Awfully many people in here, aren't they?" When there isn't an immediate answer the Doctor continues: "The city, on the other hand, is empty. Makes me think all the people have been taken here. Why?"

"The city isn't safe. The Lacarrest is on its way here. The defences of the temple are the strongest."

The Doctor nods, thoughtfully tapping his lips with his finger.

"But if it gets hold of the Source not even the Temple can save them," he thinks aloud. "Source… I like that word. It's so wonderfully vague."

"Where is that Source anyway?" Jack joins the conversation.

"It's safe," is all the answer he gets.

"It's beneath our feet," the Doctor explains, probably without translation. "The Temple of Higher Knowledge is beneath the Temple of Inerala, buried in the ground. Even most Dool don't know that."

"How come you know it?"

"Oh, I was here before. Didn't I mention?"

"Must have slipped your mind," Jack sighs. "When?"

"About fife-teen thousand years from now. The Empire was already falling at that point. Less than a century later it was history."

"If it lasted that long that would mean the Lacarrest, whatever that may be, didn't get the Source." Jack's realisation is followed by the realisation that there is no guarantee in it. History is in flux. Events can change if the ones supposed to stop disaster from happening fail in their task.

"You said the Source was protecting the Empire, a never ending power supply," Jack recalls. "Then what defeated it in the end?"

The Doctor shrugs, not looking at him.

"Time," he says.

-

They don't have to wait long before the armed men guarding the entrance to the inner temple step aside and let them through. It surprises the Doctor – in times of danger that's threatening several worlds self-proclaimed gods or their self-proclaimed messengers tend to have little time for people accused of being 'suspicious'. He doesn't complain. It's better than a casual death sentence to get rid of the potential problem.

The three uniformed Dool that have accompanied them until now stay behind at the door. Their places are taken two other guards, in more ceremonial looking uniforms and with masks covering their faces. In here the corridors are less high, less broad. Not meant to contain as many people, and even though some parts of the outer halls are busting with fugitives from the city in there they see no one else.

The privilege of the powerful.

The floor, the walls are made of stone, as if this temple was build in an ancient city and not inside a modern building, so large it is almost a city itself. There are some plants, windows to let in the sunlight, some pictures; not nearly as pompous as it could have been. Their little walk ends at another set of wooden double doors. They lead from the corridor back into a hall, much smaller the one they started in.

A woman in a long wide gown is awaiting them. She gestures for their guards to stay back and they stop and bow but do now leave. The Doctor and Jack step closer – she shows no fear of them or even suspicion and if she was indeed a goddess she wouldn't have reason to. But she isn't. She's just an old woman.

"Lady Inerala, I presume," the Time Lord greets her with a polite little bow. "I'm the Doctor, this is Jack. We mean you or your planet no harm."

"I know that." She speaks with the deep, dark voice that's typical for females of her kind. Her face is wrinkled, her once dark hair almost completely white and her skin pale with only a hint of blue left. The woman portrayed by the statues was much younger but this is without doubt the same person. In the park he's thought the statue was more than life-sized for even for a Dool it was very tall, but now the Doctor sees that the statues tell the truth.

Standing in front of her the Doctor can sense her age. She looks old, but not ancient. Yet he can feel the centuries. Dool do not get _that_ old.

Intriguing.

"How so?" he wants to know.

"I know it. That has to be enough for you." She seems gentle, but she's definitely not used to being questioned. "What I can not tell is why you have come here. It has something to do with the Lacarrest that might bring death to my people, yet I do not sense any danger coming from you."

"Yeah, we're basically harmless. What I would like to know is: what exactly is this Lacarrest, what does it want with your Source and how much time until he reaches it?" The Doctor looks her in the eyes, suddenly serious. "You can't stop it, can you? You took all the people in but if you had a way of getting rid of it you would have done so before it even reached the city."

Her answering gaze is a little weary and the Doctor can see the worry and tiredness etched into her old features.

"Why do you want to know that?"

"So I can help," he says softly.

She looks at him for a second. Then she nods.

"The Lacarrest came here from another dimension sixty years ago. Its powers are frightening but it can't survive in this dimension for very long. For survival it requires a host body, but the life forms of our universe are too weak to serve it for long. It travels fast between the stars, slower on planets. It kills worlds slowly yet nothing can stop it." She wanders over to the back of the room and a touch to the stone wall makes it disappear to reveal a terminal full of buttons, levers and holographic screens. One of the screens shows a globe of energy, surrounded by technology.

"That's the Source?" Jack asks. "I can see energy barriers protecting it. Aren't they enough to stop this thing?"

"No," Inerala says gravely. "They slow it down but not for long. For all its glory our empire cannot provide the means to stop a shadow."

"There's always a way," Jack states with a confidence that makes the Doctor smile.

"Right-o!" He claps his hands once, studying the readings on the other screens. "How long until it's here?"

"An hour, at most," Inerala answers. Beside the Doctor Jack looks up sharply. Even the Time Lord is a little shocked. "It'll need more time to get though the barriers but not long enough. The citizens only stay calm because they think we can stop it."

The Doctor only nods silently, knowing the burden she's carrying.

"Where did the Source come from?" Jack wants to know. Inerala glances over to the two guards positioned at the door but they're too far away to hear her words. She still lowers her voice when she answers and the Doctor knows the story they are about to be told is not something the common Dool knows about.

"When I was young I left my planet to seek adventures out in the galaxy," the old woman says. "I saw many things. The Source I found in the ruins of a dead civilisation, on a planet lost to time."

"What does that mean, 'lost to time'?" the Doctor asks.

"It's gone," is her vague answer. "I tried to get back there, looking for more treasures, but I never found it again."

"You were treasure hunting?" Jack smirks. "That doesn't sound very divine."

She ignores him.

"It took a while for me to realise what the Source could do. It was able to fuel my ship, but by the time I had returned to Dool I had connected with it on a mental level, and I saw all these possibilities..."

"It's drawing its energy directly from the vortex!" the Time Lord realises. "It's like a mobile hole in the fabric of the universe! It gives you insight in things to come, doesn't it? Not very much because your species doesn't have the potential for it but you get tiny glimpses. Like when you knew we were harmless."

"I said you were no danger," she corrects him. "Harmless is something the two of you definitely are not!"

Jack flashes her a smile. When Inerala continues she wanders away, over to the large window at the western wall and while the Doctor stays by her side Jack is too occupied by playing with the computer to come with them. The feeling of danger that has plagued the Time Lord since their arrival is getting stronger.

"At that time Dool was a small, unimportant world, nearly crushed in the power struggle between Ielanon and Kryk. I knew if I used the Source I could keep my world safe. And I did. When the Kryk came to take over our planet and make it a base for their war our defences were strong, as were our weapons. The Source didn't only help defend ourselves, it gave us the possibility to expand, have colonies out there, build our own empire."

"And it has kept you alive for a very long time," the Doctor adds. "The war between Ielanon and Kryk was a thousand years ago."

"I have used my life wisely," she states.

"Did you?" The Time Lord allows a hint of disapproval to get into his voice. "Well, you certainly got up in the world. You have been ruling this world for countless generations, with unlimited power. As their goddess, worshipped by everyone."

She looks down at him without anger.

"I never asked them to worship me," she says mildly. "But when people believe in you, turn you into something holy and admirable you have a certain responsibility to them. As I believe you know, Doctor." Her gaze wanders over to Jack and the Doctor can't say anything in return. So it is the old woman who continues speaking.

"You think I enjoyed being chained to this planet for centuries, trying to live up to their expectations? A goddess can't go travelling the universe. They gave me power and in return I had to give them myself. And now I can't even save them!"

Disappointing people whose belief was unshakeable is something the Doctor has experienced himself often enough. Suddenly he feels sorry for her.

"Good thing we're here, then," he says lightly. "Saving worlds is something we're very, very good at." The Time Lord turns on the spot and jogs over to Jack and the screens. "Now, let's see – you have weakened the barriers on several points of the temple. To trick it into taking a certain path instead of going straight through the halls with all the people? Good. Maybe we can use that somehow."

"Would it be stupid enough to run into a trap?" asks Jack, and Inerala nods.

"If we could create one that actually works. It seems to be controlled by instincts, only gaining intelligence when it takes over a body. And with a physical body it would be impossible for it to pass through the barriers, so it'll arrive without."

"It's somehow merging with the personality of those taken over?"

"No, Jack. It just uses their brains for its own thoughts. The self of its victim is erased." She sighs deeply. "We do have a weapon that could stop it, but all attempts to use it have lacked success. Brave men and woman have sacrificed themselves, letting their bodies be stolen, but their deaths have been in vain. The Lacarrest is too strong. Everyone facing it dies too fast to do anything."

"I see," the Doctor mumbles. It all falls into place so neatly.

"I can't understand much of these readings," the human beside him admits. "So what exactly happens when the Lacarrest gets to the Source?"

"It will prolong its life like it prolongs Inerala's," the Doctor explains absent-mindedly.

"It will do much more than that," the Goddess of Dool adds. "All this power, enough to run an empire, will belong to the shadow. It will be able to destroy worlds in minutes, with no one able to stop it, ever. The galaxy will burn." The desperation in her voice tells the Doctor that she doesn't really believe they can help her. Best to do something then, give her some hope.

The sense of danger is making him nervous, growing stronger by the second. And suddenly he understands what it is.

Before he can even turn around Jack shouts beside him, his eyes fixed on the holographic screen.

"Doctor! These readings…!" He never gets to finish his sentence but the Doctor can very well guess what he was going to say when something large and dark lowers itself through the ceiling of the room. The computer dies in a rain of sparks as the thing touches it, less than a second after Jack jumped backwards and the Doctor pulled Inerala to safety.

The Time Lord watches it with fascination: It is dark and translucent, the form ever changing. Floating in the air above them. It's surprisingly large, almost filling the entire room. From the other end of the hall the Doctor hears frightened shouts, coming from the two guards that have been waiting beside the entrance. They are both holding their weapons – an instinctive reaction to a danger they – rationally – know they can't fight.

"Don't shoot!" the Doctor calls out to them. "Don't get its attention!"

But by raising his voice he drew the Lacarrest's attention to himself. It has no body, no ears to hear nor eyes to see, still the Doctor feels like it is looking at him.

"It will kill us now," Inarala says with a hopelessness that's almost irritating. She must long since have accepted that her world cannot be saved. "It always kills those it comes across."

A touch will be all it needs, the Doctor thinks. Maybe not even that.

No. Touch won't be necessary. The Doctor can feel the energy building up inside the creature. He slowly pushes himself between the shadow and the old woman, shielding her. And then Jack is in front of the Time Lord, shielding him, and the shadow strikes.

Jack is thrown backwards, against the Doctor, and they land in heap on the floor. With the human a dead weight on top of him the Time Lord struggles to sit up, seeing the two guards running over to them. They can't fight this enemy but instead of saving themselves they're trying to get their Goddess away from it. The Doctor has to respect their bravery. Still it would only have gotten them killed, had the Lacarrest not decided that one victim was enough and formed into an arrow to push through the floor, being gone in an instant. A part of the Doctor's mind wonders how exactly it works, how its touch can be so destructive in some cases and entirely without consequences in other. There is no trace of its intrusion on the ceiling or the floor. The only signs it was ever here are the destroyed computer and Jack's corpse.

The moment the Doctor is back on his feet he whirls around, grabbing Inerala by the arms – he isn't quite tall enough to go for her shoulders.

"It's not too late yet!" he says urgently. "Tell me how to get down to the Source!" But her eyes are fixed on Jack, lying dead and still on the ground, all the life taken from him.

"He's dead, but not gone," she states with fascinated bewilderment. Well, at least her connection to the Source is still working then.

"Yeah, impressive, I know." Right now they have more important things to worry about than the impossibility that is Jack Harkness' existence. "The Source! How do I get down to it?"

After a second she has the generosity of focusing her attention on him. A glance to the two scared and nervous guards, but now isn't the time for keeping secrets.

"I'm sorry," she tells the Doctor as she hurries over to a narrow wooden door leading out of the hall. "This room is protected by strong barriers. We had expected it to take the easiest way, not the shortest."

"At least it didn't go visit the fugitives," the Doctor waves off her apology. "And the barriers will hold it back just long enough, I hope."

"Long enough for what?"

He grants her a smile.

"For me to save the world," he says.

The answer is enough for her. She gives him a long look full of sadness and careful hope.

"You'll really do that, won't you?" Her searching fingers find a hidden switch just inside the door and in the middle of the hall an opening appears, to a shaft leading downwards. Straight to the Source, the Doctor assumes. In case of emergency.

"Thank you," Inerala says quietly as he runs over to it. There's no time to waste now but the Doctor turns back to her anyway, for a second.

"Don't let anyone follow me!" he orders. "And when Jack comes back remind him of what I told him once. Two hearts. He'll know." A second of hesitation before he adds: "And if you have any deeper insight into the things to come keep them to yourself."

Then he jumps.

-

The shaft goes down vertically, for hundreds and hundreds of metres. When the Doctor jumped in he simply assumed that there would be some kind of anti-gravitation field cushioning his fall. As he nears the ground he is relieved, if not surprised, that his fall indeed slows down until he lands safely on his feet. Splattered across the floor he wouldn't have been able to save anyone.

Metallic walls greet him, lined with technological stuff he doesn't have the time to identify. Compared to the upper parts the ceiling here is very low though the Doctor still couldn't touch it if he tried.

He hurries through the deserted complex, directed by his feelings. This close he can sense both the Lacarrest and the power of Source, the vortex it draws from. The sensations overlap and mingle, making him sick.

The low ceiling soon lifts and he's in a hall again, this one full of technology and talking of a civilisation in its scientific prime. In the middle of the hall is the Source.

For the power it contains it is ridiculously small – hardly larger than the globes they used back at the academy. Its light is bright but not blinding. The Doctor doesn't have time to stop and stare.

There are two spheres of energy surrounding the Source, a third one has already collapsed. The shadowy form of the Lacarrest is pressed flat against the outer shield, trying to work its way in. The sphere is large enough to be only partially covered and the Doctor approaches from the other side, taking out his sonic screwdriver. The moment the uses the tool to create an opening the formless shadow tears away from its position and flashes over to the weak spot, but as fast as it is, the Doctor is faster. He closes the rift before it can get through. For a moment he is safe between the two barriers.

The second sphere is much smaller and thus much stronger. Opening it up takes time and all that time the Lacarrest is moving around the outer barrier, like a predator circling its prey. The Doctor concentrates on his work and forces his hearts to calm down.

The thing has killed Jack good and proper, but not much longer now until he'll come back. And he's going to be so angry!

That they don't have time for discussions isn't the only reason for the Doctor to be glad his friend wasn't awake when he left.

The inner shield breaks just in time. Turning around so his back is to the Source the Doctor steps into the gab he's created, blocking it. Around him the other barrier is weakening, falling apart.

Gone.

Instead of rushing to its goal the Lacarrest drifts closer slowly, almost cautiously. Inerala has told them it wouldn't have the imagination to see a trap and now the Doctor can only hope she was right.

It is a disembodied being, a visible spirit. Driven by instincts in this form. It could kill the Doctor to get him out of the way but it doesn't, not yet.

"Come on," the Doctor mumbles. "The shield is open. There is nothing in your way now but me. No need for you to remain in this form." As he speaks he opens his own mind, reaches out to the shadow. "Listen to your instincts! They tell you to take a corporal form. You're weak. The Source is close but too abstract a thing to understand in your state. All your instincts tell you to take a body, prolong your existence they way you're meant to. And this body is strong. It will last. Don't you feel it?"

His plan is based on the assumption that the Lacarrest only follows a goal it chose when it had a brain to think with, and now tries to reach it without really understanding why. If it has only the slightest awareness of what reaching the Source really means this won't work and all will be lost.

The power of the Source is calling out to it. The Doctor's hope is that its natural instincts are stronger.

"Come on!" he says again, his voice firm. "I'm here. I'm waiting for you! I have been waiting for you for years."

And the Lacarrest draws its form together into a narrow streak and plunges itself into the Doctors body.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack gasps, arches his back with his first breath. A second after he opens his eyes the lights flicker and die. Suddenly the hall is bathed in shadows, but none of them are moving.

"Doctor!" he calls out. "What's wrong? Did it get through to the Source?"

Inerala is a dark shape in front of the window.

"No," she says quietly. "The Source is safe."

Jack climbs to his feet, looks around.

"Where's the Doctor?"

The Goddess's voice is soft and gentle.

"He's gone."

"Gone where? What happened?" Turning left and right Jack finds no trace of his friend, only a hole in the ground that hasn't been there before. He steps closer with a feeling of dread.

With the lights gone it's just a pool of darkness, still Jack can imagine where it is leading.

"Tell me he didn't," he whispers.

Inerala's gown rustles as she steps beside him.

"He told me not to let anyone follow him."

"You let him go!"

"I let him save my world, yes. As you would have, had it been your world."

But it isn't Jack's world. It is Jack's friend, his beloved, and she let him go down there all on his own.

"What did he do?"

"He didn't tell me of his plan. But it worked. We wouldn't be alive if it didn't."

That the lights are gone could mean that the Source, the thing giving all the power, is gone. But Inerala must know better. If it was lost she would be the first to know.

Jack steps closer to the edge.

"I'm going after him!"

"He doesn't want you to. And you'll need…"

"Does it look like I care?" Jack interrupts her. "I'm going to help him! And then I'll kick his ass!"

"You can't," she says with patience. "The Lacarrest must have destroyed the power lines. The field stopping your fall is gone. You can't use that shaft."

In return Jack gives her a grim grin.

"Watch me!"

He lets himself fall into the blackness. Head first to make sure the impact kills him and doesn't just break his legs but he needn't have worried – the shaft is longer than expected and he can spend many long seconds not looking forward to the bottom.

At the end of the shaft the faintest trace of red light is reflected by the walls. Jack doesn't have a second to notice it before the darkness swallows all.

There is no way of telling how long he was dead. Time doesn't exist for the deceased and so it doesn't matter if a minute passed or a year. To Jack it always feels the same: One moment he dies, the same moment he comes alive. When he wakes up he shudders, briefly, with the memory of the fall. It should have taken his body a minute to put itself back together but he hopes he wasn't dead as long as last time. Hopes he wasn't dead too long.

Down here he can see that the faint red glow comes from emergency lights along the walls, just giving enough illumination for him to not run into the walls. Their power supply must be independent of the Source.

Thanks to the Doctor's permanent insistence Jack isn't carrying a weapon. Armed he would feel better as he sprints though the complex in the one logical direction. It's just a reflex, a wish for something for his hands to hold on to. A weapon would be of no use to him – there is nothing down here to shoot.

Just the Doctor.

He runs until he reaches a large hall where the remains of technical equipment are smoking on the walls. The Doctor is standing in front of an energy sphere, his back to Jack, a silhouette surrounded by light. His slender hands are hovering over the surface as if he were about to touch it.

"I can't get through." In the silence his voice sounds strange, alien. "Not like this. He sealed the gab when we stepped away from it. Clever man. Yes. But this could be so much better."

"What are you talking about?" Jack's own voice is hardly more than a whisper.

"I could have been a god," the Doctor continues before he turns around and looks at Jack with eyes that show only blackness. "Now I can be anything."

Seeing him like this Jack realises that he's known. He knew what he would find and yet it still hurts more than he can bear. For a second he seems to fall and when the second passes he is surprised that he's still standing.

The thing in the Doctor's body smiles cruelly as it steps away from the Source.

"Leave him alone," Jack whispers. "Get out! Give him back!"

The Lacarrest laughs, the sound ugly and wrong.

"Why should I, little creature? It keeps me from the boundless force I wanted but what would that force be to me without a mind to understand it? And this form holds so much potential, such brilliance!" It lifts one hand in front of its face. "Such power!"

A shudder runs through its stolen body and the blackness seems to drain from the Time Lord's eyes for the briefest moment, over before Jack can be sure. When the creature's gaze falls on the human again those black eyes are burning. Glowing in the bright light Jack has seen once before, years ago, only now it is so much brighter. A wave of dizziness washes over the human; for a moment he feels like all energy is being drained from him. The Lacarrest throws its (the Doctor's) head back and laughs like a child. A little boy with a new toy to play with. There's a low, cracking sound in the air that suddenly smells of dust and rusted metal and Jack feels like falling again, but this time he really _is_ falling and soon the darkness claims him once again.

-

He comes alive and it is still dark. The red glow is gone but once his eyes get used to the darkness Jack can make out a spot of pale light somewhere above him.

The ground has collapsed beneath his feet, he realises. It collapsed and he fell down to the next lower level. The light he can see must be the glow of the Source, still untouched somewhere up there. But the view is obscured by fallen rubble and Jack can only guess in what a state the entire complex must be in.

From afar he can hear the crashing sounds of the collapsing temple. Does the demon use the Doctor's powers to do this or its own? Is it just playing around or does it have a specific goal?

It's the former head of Torchwood thinking these things. The Doctor's friend only hopes that Inerala spoke the truth when she said no one could come close enough to a body stolen by the Lacarrest to harm it, and he doesn't even bother being ashamed. For a moment he's seen the Doctor up there, he's sure of it. Somehow his friend is still there, still fighting. And Jack will get him back. There will be no power in the universe able to stop _him_.

Something above shifts and crashes down on him. Jack dies.

He can't imagine how long he's been lying crushed beneath all the rubble, his body too badly damaged to revive and with no room to knit itself together. When Jack finally opens his eyes he sees the red glow of dusk on the sky above him and wonders who pulled him out, how many times the sun has set since the temple collapsed on top of him.

His back is resting on hard stone, his head on something soft. It reminds him of a time he woke up with his head on the Doctor's lap and he bolts upright.

Inerala is standing beside him and the soft thing cushioning his head was once the outer layer of her gown.

"You survived then," Jack observes without the appropriate enthusiasm. She sacrificed the Doctor. Let him sacrifice himself. Same thing in the end.

That he can understand her, had sacrificed countless strangers himself in his life does nothing to lessen his anger.

She seems unharmed. Among the armed men and women surrounding her Jack finds the two guards who've tried to protect her in the temple and two of the three that brought them there in the first place. The white haired, hornless man is missing.

Once he's able to take in his surroundings Jack notes that he's lying on a place outside the large building that contains both the Temple of Inerala and the Temple of Higher Knowledge. Part of the building has collapsed but most of it is still standing, including the chambers of the Goddess.

"How many died?" Jack asks. Inerala answers:

"Hundreds. It could have been thousands. Where the Lacarrest walked the building withered and fell. It was pure luck that it took a path that spared the halls with the fugitives."

Luck had nothing to do with it. Jack looks over to the damage the creature caused. Wonders what path it has taken once it was out in the open.

Fears that he knows.

"The Source is still safe," Inerala adds, causing Jack to laugh sharply.

"And that's all that counts, isn't it?"

The loss of lives is tragic, but had the Source been taken so many more would have been lost. The Source isn't all that counts but it counts more than anything else. Inerala is old and wise enough to see that awareness behind Jack's bitterness and say nothing in return.

He gets to his feet, his eyes still fixed on the ruined building. Parts of it have aged so much that even this material, so superior to the wood and stone used in Kradaat, became brittle and collapsed. The Demon of Old Time the people there have called the Doctor. Jack thought the name was chosen because it all happened so many years ago.

When they were on that planet humanity was just learning to walk. The English language doesn't exist yet.

Jack's hands tremble.

"No one has ever reported anything like this," Inerala tells him. "We didn't know it had powers of this kind."

"It hasn't," Jack replies. "The powers are the Doctor's."

The old woman doesn't react at first.

"The Lacarrest has taken a body capable of this," she finally whispers. "Who was your friend? _What_ was he?"

"Where did he go?" Jack doesn't see the point in answering her questions. Wasted breath. To his relief she doesn't insist on an answer.

"He went north, towards the park in the centre of the city. No one dared get close enough to see what he was doing but he seems to have left the planet."

He got to the TARDIS then. No way of telling if using the Doctor's body has somehow enabled the Lacarrest to pilot it, if the creature took the memory out of the Doctor's mind or if the Time Lord managed to regain control long enough to send the TARDIS off this planet himself.

"When was that? How long have I been buried?"

"One day. You had no life signs for our scanners to pick up, so we needed time to find you. I didn't know if you would wake up once again."

"But you still looked for me." Jack sighs. "I guess I owe you some gratitude then."

"We didn't just save you out of compassion," Inerala admits. "There's something we need you to do."

-

"This is the weapon we have designed to eliminate the Lacarrest."

The explanation isn't necessary. Jack knew what they'd show him even before the long spear was brought to him. The weapon looks like he remembers it, like he saw it so often in his nightmares: the blade split in two, with strange markings on it that look like dark glass. He only stares at it, not taking.

"It killed me before." His voice sounds strangely monotone. "It'll do so again every time I get close to it. I'm of no use to you."

"When it killed you it concentrated all its power on your person. After such an attack it needs several minutes to gather strength for a new one. Time enough for you to come back and kill it." Inerala knows no mercy. Jack is her one hope of defeating this demon. What does it matter in the face of the fate of the galaxy that she's asking him to kill a friend?

"It's all the hope we have," she adds quietly. "You have to try. Your Doctor kept it from the Source but gave it power of a different kind in a body that won't waste away."

Her guards are all round them, watching silently. It wouldn't be a good idea to grab and shake her, so Jack only clenches his fists, impotently.

"Don't you dare blaming him for this!" he hisses.

Inerala shakes her head.

"I didn't mean to. My apologies. Your friend was very brave when he sacrificed himself to keep it from becoming a god. Together with your inability to die he finally offered us a way to get rid of this evil for good. Your names will be honoured on this planet forever."

There isn't much consolation in that.

"I'm not going to kill him," Jack states what he's decided a long time ago.

"He's already gone."

"He's not! You said this thing could have killed so many more. It was the Doctor that stopped it! He somehow made it take another path. My friend is still there, and I'm going to get him back!"

Inerala listens to his outburst with sadness and pity in her eyes. Thinking he's in denial. She doesn't know the Doctor – no one here does. No one knows what the universe would lose.

"He's not like you or me," Jack tells her. In return she gives him a small smile.

"I know that much." But then she shakes her head again. "It doesn't change anything. Even if he's still there he's lost. And he wants you to stop him."

"Did he tell you that?"

"No. I know."

Jack is about to say something ugly in return, stops himself. He's only talking against the desperation and they both know it.

'_No one knows what will happen until then,'_ the memory of the Doctor whispers in his mind. _'Maybe I turn evil for some reason, in which case I would want you to kill me! Well, in that moment I might not, being evil and all, but from where I'm standing I'd want you to.'_

The Doctor would rather die than hurt anyone. Jack would wish the same in his position – the idea of being helpless while his body is used by someone else holds only horror for him. Still it isn't fair asking this of him.

It isn't fair.

Jack takes the spear. It feels cold in his hands.

"How does it work?"

"It draws the Lacarrest out of its host the moment you stab it through his heart. Traps it inside the weapon."

There is no way of doing this without hurting the Doctor.

"What if the Lacarrest gets out of him and returns to its disembodied form before I can kill it?"

"It won't do so until the last moment, because it needs the host to survive. So before you kill him you must bind him with these bonds." And she hands Jack the shackles that have bound the Doctor in Kradaat years ago, where Jack thought they looked a little strange for a place and time like that.

It's like starting a book at the last chapter and reading backwards until suddenly everything makes sense.

He takes the shackles. Having the Doctor bound and helpless would have been a dream come true under very different circumstances. Two hearts. Jack can only hope it works even if there's still a heart beating in the host. There's no way he'll stab both of them.

Of course he's telling lies to himself. They help him not to lose his mind just yet.

If he was confronted with the choice of either letting the Doctor die or forcing him to exist like this…

"The Doctor has left the planet. How do I even get to him?"

"We will give you a spaceship." How generous. Jack doesn't feel like thanking them. "The difficulty will be to find him," Inerala points out. "He could be anywhere."

"Don't worry about that," Jack mumbles, the spear in his hands. "I know where he is."

-

Years ago Jack checked the galactic coordinates of the planet the TARDIS has landed on to make sure they never went there again by accident. Now he's flying his small, borrowed spaceship to those exact coordinates, wanting it to go faster.

During the long flight all Jack can do is think about the Doctor, about how he must be suffering, about what he will do to him. Maybe the TARDIS travelled in time as well as in space and Jack will be far too late. The idea is even worse than the possibility that the Doctor's plan could go wrong and he will truly die from his injuries. Because in that case he would be out there forever, being used as a weapon, trapped and desperate and Jack might spend the rest of eternity looking for him, in vain.

Useless to think about it. He knows the Doctor will be there.

The stones said so.

He spares a thought for the natives, terrified and helpless in the face of the demon that will destroy their city. Jack knows he won't be in time to save everyone.

The journey takes two days. How long does the TARDIS need? Did it go there at once or did it go elsewhere first, for the Lacarrest to find other victims that will kill the Doctor a little more inside should he ever remember this?

Jack hopes he won't remember. If there's anything the Doctor doesn't need it's even more guilt.

The ship is small. He can't do much but think and try not to sleep.

When he does fall asleep he dreams. Jack longs for the moment the planet comes in sight but when he finally sees it, a tiny globe between three giant suns, his stomach turns.

His scanners tell him where to find the TARDIS. Jack is approaching the planet from the wrong side, has to fly thousands of miles in the atmosphere. Time stretches endlessly.

The blue box is standing where she stood during their last first visit but Jack knows more than five centuries will pass before they come here for the first time.

He lands his little ship beside the TARDIS and is out in a second. Above him the sky begins to darken as one of the moons wanders in front of the one visible sun. Jack looks down the hill, at the city below that's even smaller than it will be. There are less buildings now, apart from that it looks almost exactly as he remembers it. In the fading light Jack can't make out any damage to the houses. All he can see is that there are no people on the roads leading out of town.

Maybe the Lacarrest hasn't gone there yet. In a flash of insane hope Jack allows himself to consider that the Doctor might have won the battle on his own.

He fishes for his key but the door of the TARDIS isn't even properly closed.

"Doctor?" Jack calls out when he pushes it open. "Are you…"

His voice dies the moment he stops dead in his steps.

The console room is full of blood. It's splattered over the floor, the console, has dripped through the grating onto the machinery below. There is no doubt whose it is.

"Hell…" Jack whispers. He wanders in slowly, unable to take his eyes off the mess before him. It's so much, yet he can't tell how much exactly, how much has dripped out of sight. The Doctor isn't here – he left so he's still alive. Jack feels sick. All this blood is testament to the fight going on inside the Doctor but Jack has no way of knowing what happened here. Perhaps the Lacarrest tried to weaken the Doctor's resistance by physically hurting its host body, perhaps – and with icy horror Jack realises that this is much more likely – the Doctor regained enough control to injure himself, trying to escape the creature though the only way open to him.

In the cool air Jack can almost taste his desperation.

The light in the room seems dimmer than usually. It's large and empty and doesn't give away its secrets.

The Doctor isn't here anymore. Jack turns and leaves as well, trying not to breathe until he's out in the open again where the light is almost completely gone and the Dark Tear is a black outline in front of the nebula that fills the sky. There's only one place for the Lacarrest to go: the town of Kradaat where history is taking the path it has taken all along.

Coat flapping, the spear clutched in his hand, Jack runs down the hill.

-

Standing between the buildings Jack can see the scars.

Some houses are showing cracks and tears of age, some have been reduced to piles of rubble. People have died here, of that Jack is sure. Buried in the ruins like he's been buried on Dool, but without any second chances.

The silence is ghostly – as if all life has fled this place. As he walks along the main road to the centre of the city Jack notices that the houses on the right hand side are in a bad shape, some oft them just broken stone and withered wood overgrown by plants, while the other side of the road remains completely untouched. Then he finds the first skeleton, a little later the body of an old woman. He wonders how many of those years she has actually lived.

His hands clench around the spear as the desperation and worry he feels mingle with cold fury. This thing, this creature, it's killing people randomly, for no reason! And it's using the Doctor to do it.

In the darkness caused by the total eclipse the spear is glowing ever so slightly – the blade, the markings on the shaft are emitting a soft light that seems to grow stronger the closer Jack gets to the town's centre. Then, in the distance, he hears the screams and knows that the weapon is sensing its prey.

Now he's running. The street leads straight to a large, circular place paved with stone. The people of the city must have gathered here when the darkness came, or they fled to this place when the demon approached, seeking protection in the presence of others. Most of them are dead: withered skeletons already or old men and women in various states of decay. The survivors have scattered between the buildings, run away from the place but some of them are still here; trapped in alleys that have no exit on the other side.

One little girl makes a break for it: she leaves the relative safety of the alley and runs toward the main road just as Jack enters the place. The Lacarrest, in the centre, hears her footsteps and turns, pointing a finger at her. Before Jack can shout a warning she grows and ages, in seconds, still staggering forward. At Jack's feet she collapses, an ancient woman, and her clothes turn to dust.

The Lacarrest laughs with the Doctor's voice, delighted. It's playing around, Jack realises. It's got all these new powers and now it's trying out what it can do with them. That's what it came here for: For fun!

The stones beneath his feet, the building to his left crack and wither as well as the force aimed at the girl hits them. For all its power the creatures control of it isn't very good. There's nothing reassuring about that thought – when a child is playing with a nuclear bomb it doesn't matter if it misses the target for a few metres.

Around Jack the world suddenly seems to spin and twist. He can almost feel the shudder running through reality. The Doctor once spoke of the fragility of time and space and of the danger caused by tearing objects and people from the flow of time. If even Jack can feel it the strain all this puts on the construct of the universe had to be massive. Here the balance will hold, but had the Lacarrest abused the Doctor's powers anywhere else the consequences could have been terrible. Even without the power of the Source the thing is still a threat to the entire universe.

Jack can't allow it to get away from here.

The moment its gaze falls of Jack it freezes. For a second.

"Shouldn't you be dead, little creature?" it calls, crocking its head. In the weak light the human can't make out the blood that has to be on those dark clothes. "I saw you fall." A sudden frown on the Doctor's handsome face. "No, you died."

It has killed him before it took over the Doctor's body, has shown no surprise later. Either it can't tell apart one living being from the other in its disembodied original form or it has hardly any conscious memory of the time when it had no mind to think with. But it has seen him fall in the temple.

"I survived," Jack lies, not willing to give away his secret just yet. In response it snarls at him.

"You can't have!"

Its formerly black eyes glow brightly as it points at the human and the dizziness he already felt in the Temple of Higher Knowledge washes over him again. Only now does Jack realise that the Lacarrest is trying to age him out of his life, kill him like he killed the little girl. A part of the building behind Jack collapses but the dizziness ebbs away and the attack passes without leaving any visible trace on Jack's body.

He's immortal, a fixed point. Time cannot touch him.

As the Lacarrest stares at him Jack can see rage on his face – and fear.

"I'll stop you," he states with a strange calmness that doesn't feel like his own. The Doctor's features are twisted into an ugly grimace of fury, but it are not the Doctor's abilities the creature uses when it lashes out again. This time it uses its own power, the one that has killed Jack before. The eyes remain black and empty and Jack can actually feel the energy build up before he is thrown back and dies again.

The first thing that goes through Jack's mind when he regains consciousness is that the Doctor has never pointed at anything when he used his command over time. His second thought is:

'_There are people staring at me.'_

A dozen or more frightened men, women and children have gathered around him. In their eyes Jack sees shock and fascination as he moves. Of the Lacarrest there is no sign – it must have fled after his death, knowing he would come back. Knowing he is the one being in the cosmos capable of defeating it. The spear, however, is still clutched in Jack's hand and he realises that the shadow can't know that is was designed for the sole purpose of eliminating it. Otherwise it wouldn't have left it with him.

The people around him step back in fear when he slowly gets to his feet, probably thinking him another demon. Jack doesn't feel like consoling them but accepts that some consolation might be necessary before they tell them where the demon fled to.

"Have no fear," he says firmly, hoping that regardless of the Doctor's state the translation function of the TARDIS still works. It did on Dool. "I have come to help you. Tell me where the demon went to and I will free you of it!"

A single man bravely steps closer.

"You have seen his powers," he states. "No one can stop him! He's the heaven's wrath, come over us in this time of darkness."

"You have been struck down by him like all others," a woman joins him. "What can you do? Weapons do not stop it. We've tried."

"No doubt you have fought bravely," Jack tells them with forced patience. "But you see it yourself: It has struck me down and yet I live." They look at each other and share whispers that carry the first careful traces of hope. "Its powers cannot touch me and with this holy weapon I shall defeat it." He lifts the spear so everyone can see it. "It has fled from me, fearing my strength, but if you tell me where it has gone I will make sure it never returns to this place."

They mumble and share glances some more, then the man who spoke first says:

"Is it really true? Can you really save us?"

"That's the only reasons for me to be here," Jack assures him, whishing they'd sped up their decision making a bit. It's not like they have anything to lose. He tells them so, in words as heavy sounding as he can manage.

"He's speaking the truth!" a young boy suddenly speaks up and the conviction in his voice makes everyone turn to him, even Jack. "I saw him descent from the sky just before the darkness came. The heavens haven't sent us their wrath, they have send us a saviour!"

When they look at Jack again there's new admiration in their eyes. At other times this could have lead to a number of embarrassing situations, but now it serves Jack's purpose.

"The heavens will be angry if you don't tell me where to find my enemy," he reminds them and a second later he is told:

"The Demon has run towards the western mountains, seeking to hide in the forest. A guide will show you the way."

"No," Jack protests. "No one can accompany me, it's not safe. Also," he adds as an afterthought, "after I defeated the Demon I must take it back to where it came from. So I must leave quickly and you must promise me that you will not stop me when I take it away from here." He can't risk the Doctor bleeding to death with a stab wound in his chest just because a bunch of primitives insisted on burning his corpse or something. But they swear by the heavens and tell him where exactly the western mountains are. A second later Jack is sprinting through the streets once again for it turned out the Demon simply went back to where it came from – to the TARDIS. Jack could have thought of that himself. It was the memory of the engraved pictures that has fooled him, telling of rocks and trees.

From the foot of the hill Jack can't see the TARDIS because his own ship is in the way. He runs up the slope at a speed his lungs do not approve of and is out of breath by the time he can see that the phone box is still there.

There's no use in checking if the Lacarrest is inside; if it was it'd already be gone. Jack turns to the trees instead. It must have been the Doctor's influence that kept the creature from leaving this world, he tells himself, seeing no other explanation.

Out of the corner of his eye he notices a figure moving up the hill behind him but it's only the boy that saw him land here, nearly loosing his footing on the slippery grass.

"Go back!" Jack calls to him but doesn't look any longer to make sure he does so.

The trees aren't standing very close but the eclipse still hasn't passed and in their shadows it is hard to see anything. The only illumination is given by the spear, glowing brighter and brighter with every step Jack takes.

Then cracking in the dark, splintering wood as something flees from him. When the glow lessens Jack knows it's the Lacarrest and he's running once more, not caring for his burning lungs. He follows the noise, glad that while the creature has made plenty of use of the Doctor's power over time it has not mastered his skill of moving without a sound.

After a while, though, the noise stops and soon the human discovers why: the path the demon has taken leads to a high, vertical rock face. Left and right large rocks block the way, impossible to climb. The Lacarrest is trapped.

It turns around when Jack approaches, trying to catch his breath without showing his weakness. Torchwood and living with the Doctor have given him a lot of practice in that.

On this stony ground hardly any trees are growing. Yet the lack of leafs blocking out the weak shine of the Residion nebula can't be the only reason for that shine to seem so much brighter now. Looking up Jack can see light appearing at the edge of the large moon covering the sun. The eclipse is ending.

Standing with its back towards the wall the monster wearing the Doctor's face makes no attempt to run, or to attack. It merely watches Jack come closer with a face that reveals nothing. Never before has it bothered to hide its emotions. Jack is weary.

"Still recharging your power, are you?" he says. The weapon in his hand seems to vibrate and in the pockets of his coat he feels he heavy weight of the shackles.

"Come to kill me, haven't you?" the Lacarrest asks back, almost nonchalant. "Kill this friend of yours. You begged me to let him go and now you want him dead."

"Would you let him go?" Jack has to ask. Out of the Doctor's body and far from the Source they would find a way to stop it, together. It's foolish and risky but right now he'd be willing to do anything to keep his Time Lord from harm. "If now, in the face of death, I offered to spare you if you left him alone, would you do it?"

In return he is given a sweet smile; the Doctor's loveliness turned creepy by the blackness of his eyes.

"I haven't even started to explore what this form can do," Jack is told. "I'll never give it up!"

The attack is sudden. The Doctor's arm flies up, the light returns to his eyes, so bright. It's useless, fighting him like this, Jack thinks, and only notices the falling tree when it is almost too late. He narrowly avoids being crushed by the trunk by throwing himself forward, and in the process he slams into the Doctor's lighter body and they land heavily on the ground.

As dead leafs rain down on them Jack grabs the other's arms, presses him down.

"Doctor!" he calls, desperately. "I know you can hear me! Please, fight it! Get it out! Don't force me to hurt you, please!" It's useless – if the Doctor could win this fight on his own it already would be over.

"Then don't," the Lacarrest suddenly says. "If you kill me he dies as well. And you don't want this body destroyed any more than I do." There are stains of blood on his face and his hands are covered in it. His own.

One of those bloody hands now comes up to caress Jack's face. "Let me live and I will share my power with you. I will share this body with you." It wriggles beneath him in a way that has nothing to do with fighting, brings up the Doctor's leg to press against Jack's groin. "Who knows, one day I might grow tired of this from and you will get him back. Until then let me live and I will give you anything you want in return. You want this body, ache for it. Don't deny it, I can feel it! The desires of the flesh are strong in you and you can sate them with this body you want so much. Any time you like." And the hand wanders away from Jack's face, between his legs, firmly grabbing his balls and squeezing them.

The Doctor's hand. Between his legs. The Doctor's body, offered to him as a prize.

The Doctor, who would rather die than be used like this.

The first thing Jack does in response is pulling the hand away from his groin. The second thing is snapping the shackles around both of the thin wrists.

The demon must somehow sense the purpose of these bonds, as the Doctor's face suddenly contorts in fury and panic.

"No!" it screeches. "Don't you dare! Consider your loss if you kill me!"

Jack has considered his loss long enough. What he's thinking of now is the Doctor's gain. Having worn physical forms before the Lacarrest knows of lust and desire but it doesn't understand anything beyond that.

The human pulls the stolen body up and drags it over to the fallen tree, securing his enemy with the chains around a strong branch. He needs room for this and can't have it running off.

All the time the Lacarrest had the opportunity to leave this form should its life end. Now this escape route is taken away it screams and curses, tearing vainly at the chains. These chains seem to somehow block its powers or it would have aged them away. They didn't block the Doctor's all those years ago.

If it had time it'd probably be able to break the branch. Jack won't need that long.

He feels he should say something to his friend, but no words come to his mind he'd be willing to share with this creature. So he just picks up the spear he dropped when he collided with the Doctor's body and makes sure he'll hit only one of his hearts.

The Time Lord jerks when the spear enters his chest. A gasp for air brings blood to his lips. Jack has expected some kind of dramatic effect when the Lacarrest leave him but all that happens are the markings on the weapon glowing even brighter before their light fades away. The blackness drains from the Doctor's eyes and large brown eyes full of pain and gratitude look at Jack, for a second, before they close.

The Time Lord slumps forward, held upright by the chains and the blade nailing him to the trunk of the tree. Jack pulls it out as soon as he's sure the Lacarrest is gone. Dropping the spear without any further thought he opens the shackles with trembling fingers, catches his friend before he can fall to the ground and lifts him up into his arms.

When he turns around he spots another figure between the trees: the boy that has followed him up the hill. He must have seen most of what happened even if he can't possible have understood it and now he's staring at Jack and the burden in his arms trough wide eyes. Then he turns on the spot, runs away. He'll tell the others about this fight, and history will make it sound bigger than it was. It doesn't matter now.

It's over.

Under the brightening sky Jack hurries back to the TARDIS.

-

The blood is gone from the console room when they get there, cleaned away by the ship. Maybe, Jack thinks, the TARDIS wanted him to see it, for whatever reason. It doesn't matter. He carefully places the Doctor on the floor the moment the door closes and the old blood is replaced by new. The Time Lord isn't breathing.

"Come on, Sweetheart, don't do this to me!" Jack mumbles as he frantically searches for a pulse and finds none. "You promised!"

Medical ward. The Doctor needs help, has lost too much blood. Jack will be able to help him with the right equipment. Such a pathetic little wound won't kill him. He promised.

The Time Lord's face is white as a sheet. His head falls back when Jack starts to lift him again, causing the trail of blood to run further down his throat. Jack has ruined his favourite coat with this. Both of their coats.

He hasn't even gotten his friend off the ground when a movement catches his eye. At the other side of the console a hologram has appeared: the Doctor, alive and healthy, looking straight ahead. After a second the image begins to speak:

"_Emergency protocol twenty-three point one. Hello, Jack. If you're seeing this we have returned to the planet we have visited last week, which is called Ansesh by the way. I don't know the exact circumstances of our return but from the story told by the pictures I can guess: Either I have gone mad and decided that everything must die, which I would like to rule out, but then, you never know. Or something has taken over my body and went rampage with it. The pictures in the temple told me of the __kind of damage the demon caused to the city, and I can tell that it is indeed me, and not just something wearing my face. It also tells me that I need to be stopped, because if I'm not the entire fabric of the universe might collapse._

_That you are seeing this means you really did stop me, for which I am more grateful than you can imagine. It also means that I am dead."_

"You can't be!" Jack cries out, jumping to his feet. The Doctor is lying motionless on the ground but his holographic image suddenly turns to look exactly at him.

"_I'm sorry for lying to you, Jack. I told you __that I can handle the loss of one heart and under different circumstances that might be true. However, I have seen what powers I will use when I go to Ansesh again and on what scale. You know how much using them to a much lesser extend exhausted me – if I destroy a city with them the strain alone might kill me. In any case I won't have the strength I'd need to survive an injury like that. So I'm going to die. And you'll kill me, I fear._

_That's okay – like I said, I'm grateful. I only wish you didn't have to do that. It's something I can never make up to you. Now I just want you to know how sorry I am for all the pain I caused you so far and in the future, and how much your unwavering friendship means to me."_ A quick smile. _"I don't deserve you, Jack Harkness."_

The column in the middle of the console begins to move as the sounds of dematerialisation fill the room. Jack can only stare.

"_The TARDIS will take you home to Earth. I imagine you would rather return to your friends in Cardiff than to your original time – if I'm wrong I'm afraid this will be another point on the list of things __I can't apologize for, as this is her last trip. Once you arrive she will never move again. Just store her away somewhere, lock the door and never come back. Better yet, destroy her. The TARDIS will die with me and so her defences won't work anymore."_

The movement of the column stops as the journey ends. No unforeseen occurrences this time. For once the ship simply moved from point A to point B like it is supposed to.

"_And now go out there and live your life," _the hologram continues._ "Forget me, if you can. Just be happy and give that invaluable friendship of yours to someone who can give you something in return. Goodbye, Jack."_

The hologram fades. And Jack drops to his knees, grabs the lifeless Doctor and shakes him, cursing and pleading and checking for any sign of life over and over again.

In the end he gathers the dead man in his arms and weeps.


	4. Chapter 4

Gwen Cooper is alone in the hub when the blue box arrives. She doesn't notice it at once, has to rewind the surveillance tape to see when exactly it materialized beside the fountain. The little police box Jack disappeared in when he left them for good.

The thing is parked exactly on the lift and so she activates it, wondering what kind of face her former boss will make when he comes out of that door and finds himself down here.

Wonders what kind of face Ianto will make when he comes here and Jack is back.

There is no guarantee, of course, that Jack is really in there. She simply suspects it, because he's promised to visit. When Ianto comes to work tomorrow morning he might already be gone again.

Maybe it'd be better that way.

According to the tape the box has been here for hours, but no one has left so far. Even now there's no movement. After a minute she loses her patience, but the moment she lifts her hand to knock on the blue painted wood the door opens and Jack steps out. Through the gab Gwen can see the impossible dimensions inside, just for a second before the door closes with a sharp click.

Jack doesn't return her greeting smile, doesn't speak, hardly acknowledges her presence. His face is blank.

"You took your time," she finally says when his silence stretches too long to be comfortable, meaning both his long refusal to come out there and the time passed since she last saw him. Jack finally looks at her with empty eyes that make her shiver.

"There was something I had to take care of." Even his voice sounds flat. He seems drained, like a man who doesn't see a point in anything. Suddenly Gwen is concerned.

"Jack, what's wrong?" she asks. He doesn't answer, doesn't even shake his head, just looks though her for a moment, his back against the closed door. Then a jolt seems to run though his body and he steps away from the box, past her and towards where his office used to be.

"Where is everyone?" he wants to know, ignoring her concern, the friendship she's offering. As always. Her worry mingles with the old anger.

"The boys are home," she answers none the less. "It's almost ten in the evening and there isn't much work to do. What did you expect? You're lucky I'm still here."

"Ah," he says. "I forgot to consider the time. What are you still here for?"

"Paperwork," she points out. "You should know that. I was about to head home, but if you need me…"

The offer doesn't have time to hang in the air.

"I'm fine, thanks. You said the boys were home. Where's Martha?" The slight concern is the first emotion Gwen finds in his voice since he arrived and she hurries to reassure him.

"Martha's in Belgium, observing some weird occurrences that probably are related to the rift. She won't be back before next month, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he mumbles absentmindedly, gazing into the office Gwen has taken over. "Don't tell her I'm here."

"She'll curse her bad luck for having missed you."

"I'm staying."

Gwen frowns. Not that she minds having him around but this is sudden. When he left Torchwood they all believed he left it forever. Jack doesn't react to the look she throws him, gestures toward the blue box instead.

"When the others come here tomorrow have them move it to the basement," he orders as he enters the office and Gwen's anger wins over her concern.

"What makes you think you can give orders?" she snaps. "You take control again? Sorry I have to remind you, but you are not the boss here anymore, _Captain_! You can't just come and go like you want, disappear for a bloody year and then just return all of a sudden and assume you can get your old job back!"

Jack doesn't frown. Doesn't look annoyed. He gazes at her calmly and after a second he says:

"I'm not here because I want my job back, Gwen. I just have nowhere else to go."

Gwen's anger melts as her heart breaks a little.

"What happened?" she asks again, but this time her voice is a whisper. "Where's your friend? Can't you stay with him?"

Jack's face remains empty.

"I wish I could," he tells her. Pulls open the hatch that seals the hole leading to his room, and before she Gwen can ask for a confirmation of her apprehension he is gone.

-

The hole under the office is still Jack's room. It still holds his bed, his clock, his closet, but it hasn't stayed untouched. In the year of his absence stuff has been moved here. Alien artefacts someone was too lazy to carry down to storage, boxes filled with reports, an old chair that has been replaced with a new one. The others have offered to help him get it away but Jack never found the energy to get it done. It doesn't bother him, really. When he's down here he only lies on the bed, staring at the walls or the ceiling, for hours.

He doesn't start working for Torchwood again, has asked Gwen to keep his return a secret to the other branches. Sometimes he helps them when they can use his help. When dying is in order. Jack does it gladly – when his friends thought he was reckless and asking for death in the old days they learn better now. But most of the time he can't even muster the energy to get himself killed.

Where's the point in that anyway? The non-existent moment of oblivion isn't worth the realisation of being still alive.

Gwen must have realised what has happened the day he arrived but it took her a week to bring up the topic and Jack was grateful for the short break. He knows she's trying to help him but can't bring himself to appreciate the effort. When she drags Ianto into it Jack snaps and kicks them out. They could help, they argue. His friends think they can support him like the three of them supported each other when Owen and Tosh died. This isn't like Owen and Tosh.

That loss has been terrible but back then Jack has been the strong one. Able to comfort his friends because he's been prepared for it. The moment he's taken each of them into the team he knew he'd lose them someday. Just like he knows he'll lose Gwen and Ianto, Martha and everyone else. There were only two kinds of people in his life: Those who'll die soon, and the Doctor.

They could share their pain about their lost team mates. In his pain about the Time Lord Jack is all alone. Neither of them knew him.

He dreads the day Martha returns to Cardiff. If it was possible he'd never tell her. She doesn't have to know, but with the TARDIS in the basement she'll find out.

The Doctor asked Jack to destroy the ship but he can't bring himself to do it. The mere thought makes him feel sick – it's all he has left. Somewhere inside her twisted dimensions the Doctor is lying on his bed, washed and dressed in clean clothes, looking like he's sleeping. The TARDIS must keep his body from decaying for even ten days later he still looks the same, untouched by time.

In the lonely hours in his hole Jack often closes his eyes and imagines the Doctor's slim fingers in his own. Remembers the way the other arched beneath him when they made love, the flush on his face, his half open, clouded eyes and panting breath. His light weight on top of him when he for once fell asleep in the human's arms and Jack didn't move all night for fear of disturbing him, or even his big ears and close cropped hair and the feeling of leather under his palms as they danced. When the team is gone Jack goes to the TARDIS, and her dimly lit interior still feels like home. Every door leads to the Doctor's room and Jack spends hours looking at him, holding his hand, stroking his hair. The bed is broad and sometimes Jack lies down beside him, not close enough to touch, and only there does he find sleep. In his dreams the Doctor is alive but the impression never lingers when he wakes. Opening his eyes to stare at the peaceful looking man beside him he knows that he will never move again. Sometimes he breaks down and cries.

Outside of the TARDIS the numbness never leaves him. Even in the long years before he found the Doctor again he has never been so aware of the endless number of years stretching out before him, filled with nothing worth his time.

Every now and then Jack's chocking grief is replaced by anger and he clings to those moments, for anger he can deal with and while he's shouting and cursing and hitting his fists against the walls he doesn't have to think.

If he'd never met the Doctor he wouldn't be cursed with this endless life. And the Doctor _knew_ it! It would have been his fucking duty to stay with Jack as the only one able to keep him company for more than a moment! But instead he went and used Jack as a means to commit suicide.

Those fits of anger are always followed by guilt.

What kills him is not the fact that he has been the one to end the Doctor's life. It's the fact that the Doctor has known, from the very beginning, that Jack would kill him. And he never said a word. Didn't prepare him (for Jack might not have done it had he known), didn't try to work out a way to prevent it with him. He simply lied and waved it off and as an apology gave his friend the only thing he could offer: himself.

"_Just be happy and give that invaluable friendship of yours to someone who can give you something in return."_

It all makes perfect sense now. Jack curses himself for not seeing it before. The Doctor knew their days were numbered and what losing him would mean to Jack, and tried to make their remaining time as good for Jack as possible. Give him something to hold on to in the countless years to come, until the memory fades and is replaced by something that doesn't hurt quite as much. _"Forget me, if you can,"_ his message said, telling the immortal that despite everything his friend never truly understood what he meant to Jack. Forget him. As if that were possible.

One day Jack might see the universe end once again and he'll watch the stars go out and wish for the Doctor to be there with him.

Almost three weeks after coming back to Earth Jack doesn't close the door of the TARDIS properly and Gwen comes inside after him, finds him behind the first door she tries because the doors are all leading to the same room. Everything in his own room is lost to Jack but it doesn't contain anything of value to him anyway.

Dressed in white, his slim form stretched out on this large bed the Doctor looks fragile and precious. Jack stares at him from his spot beside the door and doesn't understand how he could ever touch him. The ship is humming softly, as if singing a lullaby.

The look Gwen gives him when she comes inside tells him that what he does here is not healthy in her opinion, but she keeps that opinion to herself for once. Instead she steps beside the bed, sadly looks down at the Doctor's relaxed face, pale and beautiful in the soft light. She's never seen him alive, Jack recalls. This is not how anyone should meet him.

'_Don't touch him__,'_ he almost says. She doesn't. Just murmurs:

"So this is your Doctor."

"My Doctor," Jack whispers. His.

"He's dead," she states unnecessarily. Jack knows what she means though and ignores her.

She won't be ignored. And Jack wants her out of here, doesn't want to have this argument in the Doctor's presence. So he sits in the kitchen half an hour later letting her carefully chosen words wash over him while staring unseeingly at the cupboard.

The humming of the TARDIS seems to be with him still. The soft glow of the column in the centre of the console, burned into his retinas.

"Are you listening to me, Jack?"

'…_this is her last trip…'_

Another two days and Martha will return. She'll be heartbroken when he tells her. Maybe it'd be better to get rid of the ship, lie to her so she will never know.

"I understand it's hard but you of all people should know…"

Jack stares through Gwen, remembering how they found Rhys' bloodied corpse in the cellblock, on a day that never happened. She knows Martha is the Doctor's friend. She'll think she'd deserve to know. Jack wouldn't want to know if he could choose. He'd give everything for a little bit of hope.

Gwen would be glad if the TARDIS and all she contains were gone.

"_Better yet, destroy her. The TARDIS will die with me and so her defences won't work anymore."_

Martha loved the Doctor, once. She'll be able to share his pain at least a little bit. Gwen won't understand that this little bit isn't enough to make up for the pain it will cause her.

"_The TARDIS will die with me and so her defences won't work…"_

"You have to accept…"

He can't destroy the ship, it would be too final. And Martha will learn it someday. He's still the best person to tell her, the only one who understands. Jack dreads the moment she comes back.

"…_will die with me…"_

Jack stops breathing for a moment, his eyes still fixed on the cupboard.

One second later he is heading down to the basement, fishing for his key.

-

"What's the matter?" Gwen gasps, trying to keep up with him. "Did you even listen to a word I said?"

"I'm an idiot!" Jack curses. He falls to his knees in the console room, pulling open the hatch in the crate to get to the box stored beneath. Fishes around inside until he finds the sonic screwdriver. It was still in the Doctor's pocked when Jack got rid of the ruined suit and he stored it here, not wanting to have it with him all the time. By the time he jumps to his feet various objects are lying around on the floor, carelessly thrown away in his frantic search. Jack doesn't spare them a second look, and fortunately neither does Gwen. The TARDIS will take care of the mess.

If he's very lucky.

'_Oh, please!'_ Jack thinks as he points the little tool at his friends still form. _'Please, please, please…'_

"Yes!" he screams when the screwdriver gives him the signal he was hoping for, unable to restrain himself. "You're not dead! Oh, fuck, how could I be so _stupid_?"

"What are you talking about, Jack?" Gwen demands to know. "He _is_ dead!"

"No, he just isn't alive!" Jack laughs, letting the tool drop as carelessly as the other things from the box so he can take his still friend in his arms. Rocking him back and forth he can't tell if he's laughing or crying, only that suddenly there is hope. His heart is aching. "Don't you see? She tried to tell me, but I was too stuck in my grief to get it. That's what you get from listening to a Time Lord! He told me he'd survive and I believed him. Then he told me he was dead and I believed him again! When he's okay I'm so going to kick him!"

"You're not making much sense," Gwen points out.

"Oh yes, I am! The TARDIS has saved him. Suspended him in time the moment he died. Which means I can heal him." He throws his head back and laughs. A small part of his mind wonders if it's sounding hysterical. According to the look Gwen throws him it does.

For the Doctor time has stopped. There's no reason to hurry except that Jack will lose his mind if he doesn't act now. Too much time has been wasted already, and he has to _know_.

"You need to help me," he tells Gwen. "I don't care if you think I'm crazy, just do it." She opens her mouth but Jack doesn't give her the chance to speak. "There's a box stored under my bed. A small metal box. I need it. _Now_!"

Gwen obviously thinks he's lost it but the urgency in his voice makes her jump up and run out. Jack follows a second later to lock the door, feeling only slightly bad for lying to her.

He doesn't need anyone around right now.

After making sure no one can get in Jack returns to the Doctor, and when he leaves the room with his friend gathered in his arms he finds the infirmary right next door. Placing the Time Lord on the operating table the immortal is torn between the boundless joy filling him, the worry that it might all go horribly wrong and the anger at himself for not seeing the signs.

"You tried to show me, didn't you?" he asks the ship. "I'm sorry, girl. It's not the first time this guy robbed me of the ability to think."

All the doors leading to the Doctor, the dreams about him being alive… Looking back she hasn't just flashed hints at him, she's smashed them over his head. Trying to communicate with him in her limited way and he couldn't see beyond the blood on his hands.

Lying there the Doctor still looks peaceful. He's known his life would end and been okay with it. When he survives this he'll remember what the demon did with his body, how many he killed, and Jack already knows nothing he'll say will convince his friend that it wasn't his doing, not his fault. He rummages through the drawers, colleting the needed equipment and doesn't feel the barest hint of guilt.

The medical tools he finds are of the highest standard, far above everything Torchwood could offer. It'll enable Jack to deal with the wounds he caused to the Doctor and those the Doctor caused to himself, even without the help of a proper medic. The TARDIS will probably keep her pilot out of time until all his injuries are treated. After that Jack will put him on life support, let the machines keep him alive because his body won't have the strength to live without them for a long time. The TARDIS will release her hold on his timeline and he will heal.

If all goes well.

Before he begins Jack places a firm kiss on the Time Lord's slightly parted lips. Then he runs his fingers softly over the nearest wall the way the Doctor has done it so often.

"Thank you," he mumbles. Oh, how he loves this ship, simply for her loving her pilot enough to defy the laws of time and space to save him!

She probably doesn't care what the Doctor will say to this.

And neither does Jack.

-

"Why here?"

The Doctor's voice is probably meant to sound nonchalant but Jack can hear his weariness. He didn't say anything when Jack told him to what coordinates in time and space he wanted to go but apparently he knows exactly where they are. And he doesn't want to be here.

"I need to take care of something," Jack tells him vaguely, and adds without much hope: "You can stay here."

The Doctor just throws him a look and moves his wheelchair over to the door. When Jack pulls it open the bright light of two suns is almost blinding. It smells of summer.

The meadow is still there. Below a city made of chrome and glass is glistening in the sunlight, filling the entire valley but the hill is still covered in grass and trees and, like the first time they came here, Jack can hear the singing of birds.

The wheelchair isn't made to move though the high grass, so Jack lifts the Doctor out of it and carries him outside, not listening to the Time Lord's protests. He knows his friend is able to walk a few steps on his own but doesn't want to waste the opportunity to hold him close.

There's a large, old tree nearby and Jack is aiming for its shadow. He stops when he notices the look on the Doctor's face as he's gazing down at the city.

"It wasn't your fault," he says once again. But the Doctor shakes his head.

"I gave it such powers… I knew it would come here. I sacrificed these people, Jack."

Despite the high temperature the human can feel him tremble. Maybe he shouldn't have taken him here. But the fact that only the Doctor can fly the TARDIS makes doing things without his knowledge a little difficult.

Jack sighs and moves on, finally sitting down beneath the tree with the Doctor on his lap. He places two fingers on the other's chin and forces him to look away from the town, at him.

"You saved them," he says firmly before kissing his friend tenderly on the lips. "All these people down there wouldn't be alive without you. If you hadn't done it the Lacarrest might have destroyed the entire universe."

The Doctor grants him a smile but it's merely in appreciation of his effort. He's knows there would be a price to pay for the safety of the universe and he has paid it. It was his decision, and now it is another guilt he has to live with.

Knowing words to be wasted Jack just kisses the Doctor again and leans against the trunk of the tree. He can't keep himself from tasting his Time Lord every once in a while though he hasn't gone beyond kissing since he got him back. Before his death the Doctor accepted Jack's love because he thought he'd owe him something and because he knew there'd be no complications in the long run. Now everything has changed. Jack will wait until the Doctor has recovered completely before he'll do anything to find out how far the other will still let him go.

In the shadow it's much cooler but the heat is still too much for the Doctor to handle for long. He nods off slowly, showing Jack that he's at least remotely at peace – or completely worn out. It's been months since he first opened his eyes – eyes that told of conflicting emotions they have never talked about. His recovery is happening slowly – like he told Jack in his holographic message, using his powers to this extend alone might have been enough to kill him and the injuries to his heart and lungs didn't do anything to improve his health.

Watching him slumber in his arms Jack wastes a moment to just take in the sight and be amazed that the Time Lord is still with him. Losing him has been the worst thing that ever happened to him and he's still owing the other man a good kick for it. But there's still time for that later. A lot of time.

All the time in the world.

-

Jack leaves the sleeping Doctor in the shadow of the tree. They're close enough to the TARDIS for her force field to protect him, and there is no danger here. The ship wouldn't have landed if there was. Jack suspects that it will stay like this until the Time Lord is back to full health again.

He still doesn't like to leave him alone for long and so he does his best to hurry up. Using the Doctor's sonic his first and more important goal is accomplished surprisingly quickly. It's the other thing that's costing him time but this is something he wants to do right.

The one upside of the Doctor's weakness is that he isn't going to wander off when he wakes in Jack's absence. So he only reason to cut things short would be his own irrational worry. He can deal with that.

It's finding the right person that's the problem. Jack wanders through the streets of a wealthy, modern city that hasn't been called Kradaat for two hundred years and doesn't even receive weird looks because of his clothes. It's in a park where he finds the kind of person he's been looking for: an old man, watching a bunch of children play near a pond.

When Jack sits down to talk to him the children come to listen. They love stories here, and Jack has a good one to tell them.

They have heard it before, of course, but never like this. And tomorrow is the night of the Dark Tear. A good time to pass it on.

In the relentless heat of the eternal day climbing the hill is even worse than the first two times. As expected the Doctor is awake when he returns. He greets him with a frown that disappears when he sees what Jack is carrying with him.

"Where did you get that?" he asks.

"Stole it from a museum," Jack answers proudly before handing back the screwdriver. The Doctor takes it without comment, his eyes fixed on the object Jack is holding.

"And then you just walked though the city with it?"

"They're selling copies in shops. I replaced the original with one, with some luck they'll need a while to notice it is gone." He grimaces. "Still, we shouldn't stay here for too long."

The Doctor doesn't give any sign that he even listened. He reaches for the stolen good and Jack hands it over without hesitation.

"Lady Inerala told me the Lacarrest would be trapped inside. I don't know how exactly it works but I thought we'd better not leave it to a bunch of people who have no idea what it contains. Wouldn't want to risk them set it free by accident."

As the Doctor's fingers run over the markings on the shaft they gleam ever so slightly.

"Yes, it's still inside," the Doctor whispers. "I can sense it."

Jack shivers despite the warm air. He wants to take the weapon back but the Time Lord continues before he can move.

"The spear has become its body." He smiles without humour. "The Lacarrest wanted to survive in this dimension, a body that would last. And they have given it to him: trapped it forever in a lifeless object. With no senses, no brain, just a vague awareness of its own existence. They're one now – the Lacarrest is no longer a shadow without form."

He looks down at the weapon that nearly killed him with an expression Jack can not read. Then he lifts the spear and in a display of strength the human didn't know he had brings it down onto his knee and breaks it apart.

The two halves fall to the ground without any dramatic effect as the Doctor sinks back against the trunk of the tree. Jack doesn't know what to say.

"Is it gone now?" he eventually asks. The Doctor nods weakly.

"Gone," he whispers.

Jack looks down at the spear. It's just a broken weapon.

"I suspect it's safe to leave it here then," he mumbles, not wanting to see the thing ever again. He pulls the Doctor to his feet and helps him over to the TARDIS that's waiting in the bright sunlight.

"What took you so long down there?" the Time Lord wants to know as he's sending the ship back into the vortex. "You were gone for hours."

Jack smirks.

"I just told someone a story. Wanted to clarify a few things they got wrong." He stands behind the other in his wheelchair, pulling him close so the Doctor's head is resting against Jack's stomach. "And now I wouldn't mind if we don't see that planet ever again."

The Doctor smiles dryly.

"You have a lot of confidence in your storytelling abilities if you just told anyone," he notes. "How do you know the message will be carried on?"

Jack kisses the top of his head.

"I'm sure time will take care of that," he says. "Never underestimate the power of a good story."

-

_The rings of the planet called Kerrion by the people of this wor__ld are clearly visible in front of the weak glow of the Residion nebula. Lady Inerala of Dool has watched their soft colours become more and more visible as the light faded, taking in the simple beauty of this event._

_In front of the rings the single moon of Kerrion can be seen, as a black shape that seems to swallow all light. The Dark Tear the people call it, and there are many legends connected with it._

_The civilisation of Ansesh is young compared to hers – only a hundred years ago have they mastered interstellar travel. They are now forming first, careful economical contacts with the Empire. Not long ago no one here really believed there were other species out there. Now Doolan children are playing with the natives and singing their songs by the archaic fires that light the night._

_Inerala wanders down the hill, unnoticed, unrecognized. She is old now and the images in her temple haven't shown the truth for a long time. Even with the support of the Source her life will not last forever and she is grateful that she could pass on her power in the final years of her life and return to the stars one last time._

_This is a good time to come to Ansesh, this young world full of promise. __Total eclipses are rare and according to the people the Dark Tear can be seen only once in five hundred years. And even in the age of space travel they honour their traditions, sit together in the dark and tell stories of heroes and monsters._

_Close to her a group of children is gathering around a young woman sitting by one of the fires and she begins to tell them the legend of Kradaat. Inerala has heard this story before, in a dozen variants but she wanders over none the less to sit with the children and listen to it once again._

"_Once upon a time," the woman begins, "in a mythical land called Kradaat, __there was a Demon so terrible that he threatened the entire land._

_One day all light disappeared and up in the sky a gate appeared – a gate to the Shadow Grounds. __The people became very frightened for they knew the world would end should the gate ever open. And then the heavens opened and the Demon came to Kradaat, down from above dressed in a cloak of darkness. He sought to open the gate and bring chaos to the world and everything he touched turned to dust. And among the people there was much woe as they could not stop him. Anyone who tried got killed by the Demon who was called the Demon of Old Time because he could make children die of old age by just by looking at him._

_When the people of Kradaat saw that no one could defeat the Demon they tried to flee, but there was nowhere to run. They were losing all hope as suddenly the heavens opened one more time and in a ray of light a Hero descended from above; a Hero so strong and brave that even the Demon feared his might and fled to the distant mountains. This Hero was kind and gentle and he promised to defeat the Demon of Old Time and free Kradaat of him forever. But everyone facing the Demon had died and the people feared that the kind Hero would meet the same fate. Still the Hero would not change his mind. He stepped forward and told them 'Do not fear! I will keep you safe!' and his spear was glowing in the darkness, giving them comfort and hope._

_So the Hero of Kradaat, whose name has been lost to time, went to the mountain__s and so great was his might the terrible powers of the Demon could not touch him. But the Hero did not seek to destroy the Demon, for once upon a time the Demon had been his friend._

_You see, they came from a world beside our own, where the light is bright but the shadows are deep and dark. One day the friend of the Hero fell into such a shadow and it swallowed him and spit him out in this world. But the sh__adow had twisted him, made him a creature of evil that would do anything to open the gate to the Land of Shadows, seeking to create an army to take over this world. But his friend, the Hero, could not bear to lose him to the shadows for they were very close, and so he travelled to our world as well, but though a ray of light, and he wanted to give this light to his friend and free him of the shadow._

_But the shadow was too strong. Knowing that his friend was lost the Hero used his magical weapon to kill him, and both his friend and his shadow were banished to the Shadow Grounds forever. The Hero, his heart bleeding, would not stay in this world any longer and declined the invitation of the grateful people. He took the dead body of his friend and returned to his own world._

_However, the Demon of Old Time had managed to crack open the gates of the Shadow Grounds just a little, and when the gate we now call the Dark Tear appeared in the sky the next time the Shadow of the Demon returned. Only it wasn't the Demon, it was the Hero's friend whose spirit had succeeded to defeat the Demon on his own and now wanted to return to his Hero. But the people of Kradaat, believing him to be the Demon of Old Time, trapped the spirit and wanted to send it back. Even though they were worlds apart the Hero heard his friend call for help and he came to free him. Now the people thought he had been infected by the darkness as well, because he wanted to help a being they thought was evil. And they decided to free the Hero of that darkness, as he had once freed them – they did not know that he wasn't tainted by it and so their fire would not have burned his shadow but only him._

_In that moment his friend's spirit, seeing the danger he was in, found the strength that had helped him defeat the Demon in the Shadow Grounds, and he kept the people from harming his friend and they wandered away together, returning to their own world to never return._

_But their happiness shouldn't last, as the Hero's friend was dead and just a ghost that would vanish after a single day in the world of the living. So the Hero went on another quest, armed this time not with a weapon of light but only with the strength of his heart, and he found the power to bring his friend back to life. Somewhere beyond the nebula they are still living, still fighting against the darkness, and they have saved a thousand worlds, but this one was the first."_

_Beside Inerala sits a little boy. He looks at the storyteller and asks: _

"_But if his friend was dead how can he live now? What brought him back from the Shadow Grounds?"_

"_There are as many different answers to that as there are people telling this story," says the woman._

"_But what do _you_ think?" he wants to know._

"_Me?" She smiles, looking up to the moon in the sky. "What else? It was the power of love."_

June 3, 2008


End file.
